This album of 20th-century masterpieces for flute and guitar features works composed especially for this combination of instruments plus arrangements of works by Bartók and Ravi Shankar. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Sonatine for Flute and Guitar is considered to be one of the finest compositions for this combination of instruments, contrasting joyfulness with poignant melodies. The warm sound of the alto flute is given expressive range in Takemitsu’s Toward the Sea, while Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango takes us on a journey from the form’s beginnings in the brothels of Buenos Aires, to its acceptance as one of the most loved musical art forms of the 20th century.

Korngold’s greatest critical successes lay in the field of opera and in his film scores. The early sets of incidental music reflect these two elements, sharing the theatrical bravura of opera and anticipating his own later filmic techniques. The music for the Viennese production of Shakespeare’s much Ado About Nothing in 1920, heard here in full, is expressive and dramatic. Der Vampir, a psychological study of desire, seduction and greed, is rarely heard, but remains a potent example of Korngold’s instinct for directness of characterization.

“[It's] a pleasant surprise to be confronted with something completely unfamiliar…The Holst Sinfonietta performs these waltzes, flourishes and scarps of underscoring with considerable color and Schwung." -Gramophone

REVIEW:

This disc reaffirms – as if such proof were still necessary – just what a prodigious genius the young Erich Wolfgang Korngold was. The complete incidental music for Korngold’s score to Much Ado About Nothing runs to nearly fifty minutes of music brimming over with pointed musical characterisation, subtle scene-setting and gorgeous melody – all written before his twenty first birthday.

The playing of his Holst-Sinfonietta is uniformly excellent and the engineering manages to find a really effective balance between all the disparate instruments. Time and again I marvelled at the genius of Korngold’s lushly economical scoring.

A further attraction of this new disc for the Korngold completeist collector is the presence of the world premiere recording of his score to accompany Der Vampir oder Die Gejagten The Vampire or The Hunted). Written just three years later this is a fascinating score in the almost expressionist way the music instantly illuminates and comments on the drama.

The issue for the listener – especially the non-German speaking ones – is that the bulk of the music is underscoring dialogue. In this instance Cornelius Bauer (who also contributes the useful liner note) and conductor Klaus Simon have produced a concert version where a narrator explains the plot as well as performing a number of roles. Here Ekkehard Abele is the suitably dramatic narrator/voice. However, due to copyright issues the liner cannot reproduce any of the texts for the work. This is compounded by the fact that the liner briefly outlines the convoluted plot but gives no actual synopsis and no indication of which track/cue fits what part of the plot. Furthermore, it would appear that some of Korngold’s music has been lost. The score as it currently exists ends with an extended dream sequence but there are two more acts in the original play which include indications of further music cues. So what we have here is an attenuated arrangement of an incomplete score in an [potentially] unfamiliar language.

None of which sounds too enticing but this is where Korngold’s especial genius shines through. The instrumentation of Der Vampir is even smaller than Much Ado. Here he uses just flute, violin, cello, harp, piano and percussion as well as a Greek-style spoken chorus for the aforementioned dream-sequence. None of the music cues are anything like as extensive or self-contained either but goodness me they are effective. The playing here is every bit as skilled and apt as in the main work but this will remain very much an appendix to the main body of Korngold’s work.

The main value of this disc is the complete recording of Much Ado About Nothing which is immensely enjoyable. Der Vampir is valuable as a first recording and in the way it illustrates the range of Korngold’s skill especially at such a young age. The only real mystery is why such a valuable recording has sat in the Naxos vaults for nearly eight years.

-- MusicWeb International (Nick Bernard)

In his Choros, Guarnieri wrote music that conjures up the landscape and essence of Brazil. These very personal concertos reveal the composer’s refined instrumental combinations and elegant contrapuntal writing, while their dance rhythms are vivacious, drawing on the baião, maracatu and embolada. The Chorosin this second volume represent all stages of Guarnieri’s compositional development. Also included is the delightful and inventive Florde Tremembé, an early work with choro-like features. The first volume is also available on Naxos.

REVIEW:

This release, the second of two, contains Guarnieri’s Choros for clarinet (1956), piano (1956), cello (1961) and viola (1975). All four abound in high-spirited dancelike passages with syncopated Latin rhythms, alternating with music of pastoral lyricism, and usually end in a celebratory, carnival atmosphere. 

The later pair, for strings, are slightly more modernist: the composer even employs a 12-tone row in the viola concerto, but his lightness of touch and Brazilian exuberance are not affected (Guarnieri hated 12-tone music and penned articles about how unnatural he found it – then wrote some to prove he could!) The program also contains an early work for chamber orchestra, Flor de Tremembé (1937), which is jazzy with echoes of Gershwin.

This disc is even more fun than Volume 1. The musicians are absolutely at home with Guarnieri’s idiom: Roberto Tibiriçá’s tempos are spot on, the soloists are terrific, the sound first rate. This Choros for Clarinet should be as popular as the Clarinet Concerto by Copland (who, incidentally, was the composer’s friend and benefactor in the US).

--Limelight (Phillip Scott)

Puccini once said, ‘there is more music in Perosi’s head than in mine and Mascagni’s put together’. Priest-composer Lorenzo Perosi achieved international celebrity by the late 1890s for his sacred music, and he also composed a fine selection of chamber works that are little known today. Perosi’s Piano Quintets have a fresh and spontaneous feel, even though they were written while he grieved the loss of his brother. Combining bold rhythms and solemn spiritual depth, these works along with the Second String Trio are all respectful of tradition while representing an exploration of new paths unique in Italian music of the time.

Review:

There are precedents for priest-composers and to that small list can now be added the Italian, Piedmont-born Lorenzo Perosi. Among some 4000 works thirty of his are chamber works. There are also numerous (if not a lavish number) orchestral works including symphonic pieces dedicated to Italian cities such as Roma, Venezia, Firenze, Messina, Tortona, Milano, Torino and Genova. Oratorios (which Perosi referred to as “my operas”) are there, as are a piano concerto (1916), a brace of violin concertos and a clarinet concerto (1928).

The chamber works include three string trios, sixteen string quartets and several suites. Among four piano quintets are the two we hear on this disc. Matteo Bevilacqua and Roma Tre Orchestra Ensemble give the sense that they hold nothing back. They respond spiritedly and with enthusiastic virility to his romantic chamber style and the qualities of the recording accentuate the message. Everything channels a convincingly vigorous inventive style tracing back to Schumann and as far forwards as Foulds, Catoire and Medtner.

All three works are in three movements and each spans about 20 minutes. The notes by Arturo Saccheti (in English and Italian) complement this unfamiliar music and he assures us that these three pieces were written while Perosi was afflicted with grief over the death of his brother Cardinal Carlo Perosi in 1930. Even so they are not lachrymose but speak of touching affinity and a deep dive into the vigour of life and touching romance. There is more of the latter than the former.

The First Quintet sings in sighing and glinting pearlescence with a middle movement that mediates motion and meditation. The finale is all confident flourishes and triumph. The Second Quintet smiles and chaffs with lots of scurrying action and a second movement that cradles an affecting melody before returning to the busily motoric and ever so slightly furious finale. The Second Trio (strings only) has about it a neo-Mendelssohnian melodic way that is often gentle but sometimes haughty.

Given the dates, these are old-fashioned works but not caught in the jet of pastiche. They lack nothing in a life that pushes at the boundaries and which engages the listener. They seem impatient with anything suggesting the religiose or crustily academic. Listen and you will find affinities with other Italians of the pre-Second War years.

--MusicWeb International (Rob Barnett)

Sigismond Thalberg was a virtuoso pianist whose training included studies with Mozart’s pupil Johann Hummel, and whose rivalry with Franz Liszt became the talk of Paris in the 1830s. Thalberg excelled in the fashionable solo piano genre of operatic paraphrase but, while drawing on themes by the ever-popular Rossini, Les Soirées de Pausilippe avoids ostentatious excess. Instead Thalberg preferred an elegant simplicity in which the piano is allowed to sing in emulation of the operatic originals. With rhythmic dances, expressive arias and more, this is a collection that embraces moods that range from Mendelssohnian charm to Chopinesque pianism.

Famous today for his Trois Gymnopédies, Erik Satie was an eccentric and solitary figure who was nevertheless viewed by some as a prophet of French musical modernism, his striking creativity championed by Ravel and Debussy. From tragedy and trauma in his early years, through his time as a pianist and Parisian provocateur at Le Chat Noir cabaret, and as house composer to the mystical Rose+Croix cult and beyond, Satie’s eventful life is told in this fascinating revue of a composer whose unique music is still influential today. The narrative, written by musicologist Davinia Caddy and read by actor Lucy Scott, is illustrated with musical excerpts from works including Gymnopédie No. 3, Gnossienne No. 3, Sports et Divertissements, Trois Morceaux en forme de poire and Relâche, among others.

Henri Tomasi’s violin works are little known but they offer a compact insight into the direction of French 20th-century composition. The Violin Concerto ‘Périple d’Ulysse’ is a late work, by turns alluring, tragic and violent, conveyed through rhapsodic virtuosity and a rich sense of color. The Capriccio is full of elegance and refinement with emotional intensity in its slow movement and brilliance in its finale. Chant hébraïque conjures up Orientalist motifs while the sequence of early works for violin and piano reference Tomasi’s Corsican heritage and evoke quasi-cinematic exoticism.

REVIEW:

The most substantial work on the disc is 1962's Violin Concerto ‘Periple d’Ulysse’ (Ulysses’ Journey). Cast in four movements it’s a veritable tour-de-force for the soloist, demanding a virtuoso technique of the highest order. The work is brilliantly scored; Tomasi’s colorful orchestration is impressive by any standards. It’s highly rhapsodic, with moments of passionate intensity and drama.

The three-movement Capriccio (1931, rev. 1950) was, in effect, the composer’s first violin concerto. It conveys a distinctly Gallic tone. Once again, Tomasi proves himself a colorful and imaginative orchestrator. Two sprightly outer movements bookend a central Andante, described aptly in the booklet as “a moment of sheer beauty”. Moraly fully savors its glories with a beautiful, rich, ravishing tone. Although only a short piece, the Chant hébraïque, written two years before the Capriccio, is a well-crafted score. It’s gossamer orchestration and exotic flavour are enticing. Stéphanie Moraly is joined by pianist Romain David for the remaining four pieces. All are brief, the longest is just under six minutes.

I have really enjoyed this CD and recommend it wholeheartedly, simply because it ticks all the right boxes. Moraly and David perform these works with distinction. Their playing has precision and panache, and expressive warmth when called for. I admire their sublime musicianship. The recording is top notch.

-- MusicWeb International

You can’t go wrong with 68 minutes of gentle, relaxing, and intelligent music.

Brazilian composers in the 19th century often sought state scholarships to enable them to study in Europe where they were to become influenced by the German, Italian and French compositional schools. They also became involved in the vogue for writing suites based on ancient dances, such as Nepomuceno’s delightful Ancient Suite, premiered at Grieg’s home, or Braga’s Madrigal-Pavana which evokes the belle époque ballrooms of Rio de Janeiro. Miguéz’s Suite in the Old Style is polyphonic and lively, while Gomes’ Sonata for Strings is his finest non-operatic work.

REVIEWS:

Though these Brazilian composers—all born from 1836 to 1868—aren’t household names, they’re well worth your attention. Carlos Gomes's perky, witty Sonata for Strings reminds me a lot of Rossini; the melodies are reserved almost solely for the violins, and they sound like they should be arias instead of a sonata. Alberto Nepomuceno studied in Italy and Germany, but his Suite Antique is a cousin to the Holberg Suite by his friend Grieg. Brass, winds, and timpani join strings in Leopoldo Miguez’s Suite a Antiga, and the oboe solo in the “Aria e Double” is spare yet beautiful. His tunes are fetching, and his countermelodies are inventive and attractively detailed. He gets more chromatically adventurous than the others, too. You can’t go wrong with 68 minutes of gentle, relaxing, and intelligent music. The sound is reverberant though not plush.

-- The Absolute Sound

The English Chamber Orchestra give suitably refined performances, its elegant sound being ideal for this repertoire.

-- Gramophone

The delightful Sonata for Strings by Carlos Gomes (1836–96) that opens the disc may remind some of, say, Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. The good humor continues thereafter in this enjoyable snapshot of the 19th-century Brazilian chamber orchestra music, all seemingly played with relish by the ECO.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Ron Goodwin is famous for several iconic film scores such as the rousing 633 Squadron. His was an instantly recognizable musical voice, combining an innate ability to write both memorable tunes and to evoke the many moods demanded by film directors, qualities that extend into the gloriously evocative Drake 400 and New Zealand Suites. Goodwin’s long and distinguished career earned him multiple Ivor Novello Awards and a Golden Globe Award among many other accolades. Conducted by the composer, this recording represents the best of a true leader in the field of popular music.

Josef Bohuslav Foerster was the successor to Dvořák as organist in Prague, a lifelong friend of Mahler, and a pivotal figure in Czech music, whose almost 200 compositions take in all the major genres. The three selected works here offer an overview of his orchestral music. Recalling several equally majestic pieces by Smetana, the arresting Festive Overture combines Czech flair with Viennese elegance, while From Shakespeare explores characterization with warmth and resourceful orchestration. The early Symphony No. 1 in D minor offers a darkness-to-light trajectory suffused with rich mid-Romantic colors.

Maria Kliegel celebrates her 70th birthday in 2022 and this collection brings together some of her most outstanding recordings, personally selected by Kliegel from her vast Naxos discography. Known as ‘La Cellissima,’ Maria Kliegel’s playing is characterized by a warmth, sensitivity and refinement that complements everything she performs. Combining the best from her teachers Janos Starker and Mstislav Rostropovich, and working alongside excellent orchestras and pianists, Kliegel’s inspirational joie de vivre radiates from all of these performances. From her GRAMMY-nominated Bach Cello Suites to a Saint-Saens Cello Concerto ranked among the top 50 recordings of the 20th century by Scala, this collection is a major celebration of Maria Kliegel’s fluent virtuosity and irreplaceable musicianship.

Since the 1960s the Polish accordion concerto has enjoyed increasing popularity and in recent years no one has inspired more composers to write for the instrument than Klaudiusz Baran. The three most important Polish concertos are showcased in this album. Marcin Błażewicz’s concerto possesses a fascinating wealth of colors with spectacular passages and melodic arabesques cast in a richly communicative language. Mikołaj Majkusiak’s youthful Concerto Classico is a virtuosic synthesis of old and contemporary forms, while in 1973 Bronisław Przybylski wrote a swashbuckling concerto full of the folkloric influence of Polish dances.

Unless one lived in a major European center with an orchestra, the opportunity to hear large-scale works by the great composers of the age was well-nigh impossible. The insatiable demand for new chamber versions of famed orchestral works saw Hummel ar-ranging Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 ‘Pastoral’ not long after the great composer’s death. Hummel approached his task with great care, bringing a fresh perspective to the works in his sensitive and compelling chamber music configurations. Hummel’s arrangements of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 ‘Eroica’ can be heard on Naxos 8.574039.

The collection of pieces by Anton Rubinstein is a mini-treasure trove. Delicate, tasteful and irresistible.

Anton Rubinstein has occupied an uneasy place in the history of Russian music, largely because of his Jewish origins, which led some to write him off, and the related perception of him as a ‘German in Russia’. In recent years his solo piano music has begun to be re-evaluated. This album focuses on the series of works written in the mid-1850s and reveals music of charm and flair. The Three Pieces, Op. 16 are conventional in form but attractive, and the Two Pieces, Op. 28 contain a strongly contrasted Nocturne and Caprice. More ambitious, and intended to be performed in his concert repertoire as one of the greatest virtuosos of the age, are the Six Pieces, Op. 51.

REVIEW:

Noted Brazilian, Steinway artist Sergio Gallo concentrates his effort on the Romantic era. One can hear his connection to these pieces, filled with ardor and efficiency: a delicate edging, yet mighty in pockets of dramatic regale. Each of the pieces inside opus 16 “sing” beautifully and contain delightful swells of pitches and turns, suffused by lyrical freedom.

A caprice, in the most literal term, directly translates into unexpected twists and turns. Certainly so, as there is much more tension inside the Three Caprices. Each of the three movements is independent yet totally connected. M. Gallo’s performance is beautifully nuanced, nudging notes where needed, yet retrenching where critically needed.

The opening “Nocturne” inside Two Pieces has strong lines into Frédéric Chopin, yet Rubinstein’s composition is more restrained and bold within. But there’s a beautiful contrast which Rubinstein chose to compose in the segue “Caprice”: undoubtedly, it is fresh with mild hints of flittering deviousness. Catapults are brisk, unannounced, and filled with delightful enclaves of devilish delight, and the closing denouement is understated yet ravishing. Smooth and sleek in parts, Sergio Gallo gives a spectacular reading of this highly vivacious and spirited œuvre.

Open the capsule of case studies as we turn to the Six Pieces with its journey inside a range of mild emotions. Sergio Gallo takes a dignified and thoughtful stance into these characterizations, each one eliciting precious thoughts and careful reflections. Nothing harsh hits the ear, so a 6-term journey through reflections is spectacular! Sergio Gallo exquisitely unfolds the thoughts with delicate discernment. Brilliant.

The collection of pieces by Anton Rubinstein is a mini-treasure trove. Delicate, tasteful and irresistible.

-- ConcertoNet.com (Christie Grimstad)

Niklas Sivelöv has proved a prolific symphonist over the past ten years or so, with six completed symphonies and a seventh currently in progress. The Symphony No.1 (Nordico) was written in the summer of 2013, during a surge of creativity following the birth of the composer’s son on 30th July of that year. The title may be understood both as a reflection of Sivelöv’s upbringing in the north of Sweden, and of at least some of his strongest influences, most notably of Sibelius. The music is bursting with energy and momentum, infused with all the verdant colors of the Nordic forest, its deep blue sky, and – in winter – the all-enveloping snow. The work is in three movements of more or less equal duration, lasting in total around half an hour. The writing is highly virtuosic, making considerable demands upon a standard-sized orchestra, the forces extended only by a large percussion section and – as usual for Sivelöv – a substantial part for his own instrument, the piano.

Here are two very personal, immediately spontaneous and highly dramatic interpretations of the two concertos, in which so many things sound excitingly new.

For 19th-century audiences Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 was the most loved of all his piano concertos, a work in which the balancing of high drama, tenderness, lyricism and humour is most pronounced and in which a coda resolves inner tensions with brilliance and triumphant grandeur. Piano Concerto No. 4 is the most introspective and poetic of the concertos. The simplicity of its opening piano statement gives way to an unprecedented dialogue in the central movement between a heartfelt piano and an austere unison string orchestra, before the infectious energy of the dramatic finale.

REVIEW:

Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto is a departure into a new era. And that’s what Boris Giltburg makes us feel in his interpretation with the Liverpool Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko. His first movement is very agitated and rhetorical, and the Largo is not a beautiful romance, but rather a reflection and lingering, a recharging of the batteries, so to speak, whose energy is used up in the last movement. On the whole, the contrasts are highly dramatic. Orchestra and pianist sometimes seem to want to go in directly opposite directions.

Excitement and contrasts between orchestra and piano also characterize the first movement of the Fourth Concerto in which Giltburg makes the cadenza particularly exciting and expressive. The second movement ends enormously sombre and hopeless, the Passagio experience is fearfully depicted. The last movement is jubilant and fluttering, extremely virtuosic and ravishing in its exalted manner.

So we have here two very personal, immediately spontaneous and highly dramatic interpretations of the two concertos, in which so many things sound excitingly new. And that makes us recommend these pianistically and orchestrally magnificent recordings without hesitation.

-- Pizzicato

The second volume of Leone Sinigaglia’s music for string quartet (Volume 1 is on 8.574183) explores a series of generally shorter pieces for the medium. These deeply expressive works, such as the yearning Romanzafor string quartet and horn, combine compositional rigour with a flowing Italianate lyricism nurtured in the years 1888-89. Also included are the String Trio in A major, which evokes the world of the Baroque through its Bachian counterpoint, and the Trio-Serenata, fusing elysian beauty with joyful elegance. All but one of these pieces are world premiere recordings, many of which are played from the composer’s original manuscripts.

Anton Rubinstein’s remarkable virtuoso career during the 19th century coincided almost exactly with the final developments of the modern piano. The increasing popularity of the instrument combined with Rubinstein’s formidable execution earned him enormous popularity as a performer. The Six Preludes and Fugues in Free Style are major works, each piece dedicated and alluding to famous composers and performers of the day. The charming Three Pieces are small-scale character works, while the Concert Étude in C major is a witty display piece in which ‘wrong notes’ are instantly corrected, like an errant pupil attempting to disguise mistakes.