VILLA-LOBOS: Rudepoema / Dancas

VILLA-LOBOS: Discovery of Brazil, Suites Nos. 1 - 4

GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue / Piano Concerto

INVITATION TO THE DANCE

BORODIN: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 and 3

LISZT: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Totentanz

Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 9

Ravel: Bolero - Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 1 - Ma mère l'oye

FAMOUS FRENCH OVERTURES

VERDI: Opera Choruses

1990 release. Delibes the Best of French Ballet performed by the Slovak Rasio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava) conducted by Ondrej Lenard. Recorded at the Concert Hall of Slovak Radio in Bratislava, April 3-6, 1989, December 1, 1988 & October 23, 1989. "An attractive hour of Delibes, with five key items from Copp�lia, including the Music for the Automatons and Waltz, four from Sylvia, not forgetting the Pizzicato, and four from La Source. Perhaps most enjoyable of all are the six pastiche ancient 'airs de danse', provided for a ballroom scene in Victor Hugo's play, Le Roi s'amuse. They are played most gracefully, and the excerpts from the major ballets are spirited and nicely turned. "- Penguin Guide.

1987 release with highlights from his famous ballets. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) performed by the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra recorded at Concert Hall of the Slovak Philahrmonic June 20-25, 1987 & Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded at Concert Hall of the Czecho-Slovak Radio in Bratislava October 13-20, 1987 conducted by Michael Halasz & Ondrej Lenard. The music of Tchaikovsky, in spite of the reservations of contemporaries at home and abroad, must seem to US both essentially Russian and firmly in the West European tradition. In Vienna the critic Eduard Hanslick was able to complain of the "trivial Cossack cheer" of the finale of the Violin Concerto, but in Russia Tchaikovsky never went far enough to please the self-appointed leader of musical nationalists, Balakirev. While by no means a miniaturist, he nevertheless excelled in his mastery of the smaller forms necessary in ballet, writing music that displayed his remarkable gifts of melody and skill in orchestration.

Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker was first performed in St. Petersburg in 1890, damned with the faintest of praise by the Tsar, who remarked that it was "very nice". The composer himself expressed dissatisfaction with his music for The Nutcracker, a subject proposed by Marius Petipa and the Imperial Theatre Directorate in 1891 and first performed at the Maryinsky in December, 1892, again to a cool reception. The music itself, however, had already proved popular enough in a suite arranged by Tchaikovsky for a concert earlier in the year. The story of the ballet is drawn from E.T.A. Hoffmann's tale, Der Nussknacker und der M�userk�nig. Set in the eighteenth century, initially in the house of the President of one of the German states of the period, the ballet opens with a children's Christmas party, at which Drosselmeyer, a slightly sinister adult, brings presents, a doll for Clara, the daughter of the house, and a toy soldier for Franz, her brother. When the children are told not to open their presents, Drosselmeyer quietens them by giving the two a pair of nutcrackers, promptly broken by Franz who tries to crack the biggest nut he can find. The Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), the oldest symphonic ensemble in Slovakia, was founded in 1929. The orchestra's first conductor was Franti�ek Dyk and over the past sixty years it has worked under the direction of several prominent Czech and Slovak conductors. The orchestra has made many recordings for the Naxas label ranging from the ballet music of Tchaikovsky to more modern works by composers such as Copland, Britten and Prokofiev. For Marco Polo the orchestra has recorded works by Glazunov, Gli�re, Rubinstein and other late romantic composers and film music of Honegger, Bliss, Ibert and Khachaturian. Ondrej Lenard was born in 1942 and had his early training in Bratislava, where, at the age of 17, he entered the Academy of Music and Drama, to study under Ludovit Rajter. His graduation concert in 1964 was given with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and during his two years of military service he conducted the Army Orchestral Ensemble, later renewing an earlier connection with the Slovak National Opera, where he has continued to direct performances.

SPOHR: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 2 and 4 / Fantasia, Op. 81

SPOHR: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 1 and 3 / Potpourri, Op. 80

RUSSIAN FESTIVAL

. . . [A]t this price how could anyone with the slightest weakness for Respighi hesitate? Scherbakov and Griffiths do a good deal more than dutifully go through the motions, the soloist in particular playing with delicacy and affection . . . . [T]he Concerto and the Fantasia, both very early Respighi, are not patronized in the slightest. The central slow section of the Concerto, indeed, achieves something like nobility . . . . The Toccata is not so much an exercise in the neo-baroque, often though its dotted and florid figures promise it, more of an essay on how far one can be neo-baroque without giving up a post-Lisztian keyboard style and comfortable orchestral upholstery. But in a slow and florid central section, a rather melancholy aria that passes from the soloist to the oboe, to the strings and back again, there is a real quality of Bachian utterance translated not unrecognizably into a late romantic language . . . . Scherbakov sounds touched by it, and obviously wants us to like it. Indeed these are likeable performances of music that needs that sort of help, but repays it. . . . -- Michael Oliver, Gramophone

Classical Music

BEETHOVEN: Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6

Batthle Music

Dvorák: Symphony No. 1 - Legends Op. 59, Nos. 1-5

Mayerl: Aquarium Suite / 4 Aces Suite