Featuring more than a hundred pieces, this album showcases the charming dances Schubert composed for the many fashionable salons in Vienna between 1815 and 1823. It joins other Naxos albums dedicated to Schubert’s piano dances and miniatures by Yang Liu (8.573941) and Daniel Lebhardt (8.574145, 8.574277). French pianist Didier Castell-Jacomin is a Steinway Artist.

Peter Graham is one of the leading brass band composers of his generation, and the first outside the US to win the American Bandmasters Association’s prestigious Ostwald Award for composition. Black Dyke Band celebrates his 60th birthday with this recording, the theme of which derives from Graham’s time in New York and from some of the ‘giants’ of American culture. On the Shoulders of Giants pays tribute to great brass virtuosi such as Miles Davis and John Philip Sousa; New York Movie is a ‘musical narrative’ on seven of Edward Hopper’s iconic, haunting paintings; and Metropolis 1927 takes its inspiration from the dystopian beauty of Fritz Lang’s classic science fiction film. The Black Dyke Band is legendary in brass band circles, and has already recorded the music of Philip Wilby, which American Record Guide called “dazzling.”

This album focuses on Enescu’s early chamber music composed during the turn of the 20th century, much of which has only recently been discovered. The Fine Arts Quartet, one of the world’s leading quartets, is joined by the Witkowski Piano Duo and double bassist Alexander Bickard in works that include an arrangement of Enescu’s popular Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 for piano and string quintet.

REVIEW:

The Fine Arts Quartet is at the core of this program. Its members as well as the two pianists on the program bring great spirit to these youthful works, and the label’s recorded sound is fine. The program notes are informative as well. This is a very attractive disc.

— Fanfare

Although biographical details of his life remain sketchy, Luys Milán’s Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro is certainly the oldest surviving printed collection of vihuela music. Tuned like the contemporary Renaissance lute, the Spanish vihuela is a guitar-shaped instrument and for it Milán wrote a series of compelling works including fantasias and pavans that maturely fused improvisatory and polyphonic elements. This recording presents all the solo vihuela pieces from the first book of El Maestro in the order in which they appear.

Also available on Blu-ray

The works of award-winning composer Chaya Czernowin have been performed worldwide at significant new music festivals and prestigious venues, and she is the first woman to be appointed composition professor at Harvard University. Commissioned by Deutsche Oper Berlin and widely acclaimed in the critical press, ‘Heart Chamber’ uses voice and stage as internalized sonic and visual landscapes to create a genuine multi-sensory musical experience. With only two characters and a hint of a narrative, this is a grand opera on the smallest of transformations, focusing on the intense beauty and vulnerabilities of falling in love. ‘It is seldom that audiences at the Deutsche Oper Berlin have listened with such rapture to a new commission’ (Online Merker). Director Uli Aumüller’s feature film ‘I did not rehearse to say I love you’ is also included and takes a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the opera.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was one of Italy’s most influential and important composers during the 20th century. He was inspired to write for the guitar after meeting Andrés Segovia, and in the years that followed he wrote over one hundred works for the instrument. The Quintet for Guitar and String Quartet, a rare combination, reveals perfect sonority and construction with a serene Iberian mood. The Sonatina for Flute and Guitar contrasts joyfulness with poignant melodies, while the Eclogues are bucolic and lively. Written for Segovia and his wife Paquita Madriguera, the Fantasia for guitar and piano presents an expertly blended texture for this combination of instruments. Guitarist Leonard Becker is the Second Prize winner of the International Hannabach Guitar Competition 2020, held in Augsburg, Germany. He has performed with orchestras including the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra, with which he performed Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuezin 2019. Alongside Louis Vandory, Valerie Steenken, Elisabeth Buchner and Márton Braun he is the founder of the Tedesco-Quintett (guitar and string quartet), which won First Prize at the International Chamber Music Competition ‘Gerhard Vogt’ in 2019.

Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges was a brilliant swordsman, athlete, violin virtuoso and gifted composer, with a claim to being the most talented figure in an age of remarkable individuals. He was an early and important exponent of the hybrid symphonie concertante – a genre that draws on both the symphony and concerto traditions. This novel format was the ideal platform for expressive inventiveness, providing new textural possibilities through the addition of a second solo violin or viola. The Symphony in G major, which has all of the effervescence typical of Haydn, is an excellent example of the cosmopolitan French symphonic style.

Michael Halász’s first engagement as a conductor was at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, Munich, where, between 1972 and 1975, he directed all operetta productions. In 1975 he moved to Frankfurt to work as principal Kapellmeister with Christoph von Dohnányi, and here he conducted the most important works of the operatic repertoire. Many engagements as a guest conductor followed and in 1977 Dohnányi took him to the Staatsoper Hamburg as principal Kapellmeister. From 1978 to 1991 he was GMD (general music director) of the Hagen Opera House and in 1991 he took up the post of resident conductor at the Wiener Staatsoper for 20 years.

REVIEWS:

In content and style the concertante owe much to Haydn, each score in two movements that are never short of attractive thematic material, the soloist’s role musically dancing around a slender orchestral backdrop. Here they include the exciting young Russian-born violinist, Yury Revich, with a famous 1709 Stradivarius, and the deputy leader of the Czech Chamber Orchestra, Libor Jezek, Pavla Honsova the solo viola. Now 83, the conductor, Michael Halasz, obtains very neat playing from the Czech Chamber Philharmonic, his tempos never rushed but always buoyant. In three short movements, the disc is completed by one of the two symphonies written by Saint-Georges, again owing much to Haydn. High-class sound quality, and I greatly commend it to you.

– David's Review Corner (D. Denton)

Today Joseph Bologne is remembered as the first classical composer of African ancestry and also as a noted conductor, violinist, and as a pioneering exponent of the symphonie concertante, a genre that combined the structural characteristics of both the Classical symphony and the 18th concerto grosso, and one that he successfully explored and imprinted with originality.

Michael Halasz leads the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice and soloists Pavla Honsová, Yury Revich, and Libor Ježek with a stylish command of Bologne’s charming music.

– Rafael's Music Notes (R. de Acha)