Naxos
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BAX: Sinfonietta / Overture, Elegy and Rondo
Bax: String Quartet No 3, Etc / Jackson, Maggini Quartet
Bax: String Quartets No 1 & 2 / Maggini String Quartet
Quartet No. 2 is a tougher nut, and thus did not achieve the initial popularity of its predecessor. The opening movement's angular contortions give way to secondary material of a more lyrical stripe; however, it's not until the second movement that you find the expected Baxian lushness--and even here you can't get too comfortable, for sharp edges lurk in the shadows. A determined optimism characterizes the hard-dancing finale, which features two fugato passages before ending in a brilliant coda. Both quartets are important contributions to the repertoire, something made abundantly clear by the Maggini Quartet's masterful, deeply felt, and finely executed readings. The ensemble's burning conviction will make you a believer too, especially in this beautifully engineered production from Naxos.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com
Bax: Symphonic Poems / Lloyd-Jones, Et Al

Drawn from David Lloyd-Jones' excellent set of Bax symphony recordings, this collection competes in four out of five works with Bryden Thomson and the Ulster Orchestra on Chandos. Whereas Thomson has Summer Music, Lloyd-Jones offers The Tale the Pine Trees Knew, a more interesting and substantial work. In general this Naxos issue offers tauter, livelier performances than does Thomson, and this prevents the music from degenerating into a typically shapeless Baxian blob, as it has a tendency to do, particularly November Woods and The Garden of Fand. Lloyd-Jones also has the finer orchestra and a leaner basic sonority, less atmospheric than Thomson to be sure, but with a rhythmic crispness that puts a bit more muscle and sinew on Bax's opulent textures (check out Tintagel, which delivers a real rush of excitement in its central section). The engineering complements the performances, having fine clarity and impact. If you're in the market for a single disc of Bax tone poems, or even a single disc of Bax, then this one certainly fills the bill. [7/25/2005]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Bax: Symphony No 1, In The Faery Hills, Etc / Lloyd-jones
Bax: Symphony No 2, Etc / Lloyd-jones, Royal Scottish Orchestra

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
Bax: Symphony No 3, The Happy Forest / Lloyd-jones, Et Al

In the golden age of vinyl, the English label Lyrita produced a series of Bax symphony recordings conducted by Myer Fredman, Raymond Leppard, Vernon Hanley, and Norman Del Mar that gave most their first exposure to the evocative, romantic symphonic music of Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953). It was one of the most distinguished series of audiophile recordings every chronicled. Lyrita only released two of the symphonies on CD (Symphonies 1 & 7) but that is probably out of print at the moment. There was an even better recording of the third symphony from the London Symphony and Edward Downes, also long gone. Chandos took a stab at the series during the dawn of the DDD era, but its conductor, Bryden Thomson, using slow tempos, took a loose and meandering view of these episodic works that caused them to seem disjointed. Naxos has now entered the ring with just the right conductor and orchestra and produced a series that is every bit the equal of that on Lyrita, but with a welcome twist, it is available to the public at less than half the cost. In this current installement, David Lloyd-Jones once again leads the excellent Scottish orchestra in a reading that is radiant and lyrical, and paced exacly right. The sounds of nature have seldom been so successfully translated into musical expression, and the superb engineering partners the performance hand in glove. If you like Vaughan Williams, especially his Pastoral Symphony, you will no doubt love this music. Start with this, the most popular of the composer's symphonies, backtrack to symphonies 1 & 2, already available on Naxos CD; then, along with me, keenly anticipate further releases in this magical series.--Rad Bennett, ClassicsToday.com
Bax: Symphony No 6, Etc / Lloyd-jones, Et Al
The Scottish National players yield nothing to their London counterparts--if anything their brass have the edge in terms of projection and rhythmic alacrity. Naxos' recording, while less opulently reverberant than the Chandos production, presents a sharper image that allows more of Bax's multilayered detail to emerge clearly (while still swallowing some of the top end, glockenspiel in particular). To top it off, Lloyd-Jones offers first-rate performances of Bax's lushly exotic Into the Twilight and the dreamy Summer Music. Certainly a must for Bax fans, but newcomers can unreservedly join in the fun too.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com
Bax: Symphony No 7, Tintagel / Lloyd-jones, Royal Scottish
This album was nominated for the 2005 Grammy Award for "Best Orchestral Performance."
Bax: Viola Sonata, Legend, Etc / Outram, Jackson, Rolton
Therefore it is good to find these viola pieces coupled in an appealing budget release from Naxos, pleasingly recorded by a particular talented player and his colleagues. Bax enjoyed an enduring friendship with the great Lionel Tertis (subject of a recently published biography by John White), and the substantial Sonata of 1922 is one of his finest compositions in any genre. The opening makes an arresting impression, at once atmospheric and expressive, while the scherzo is particularly exciting rhythmically. Martin Outram plays with warm expressiveness and a suitably rich tone, while Julian Rolton on the piano is recorded in just the right balance of perspective.
There is no question that the Viola Sonata ranks as the most significant composition among those collected here, and it is worth the price of the disc on its own. Alternative recordings are not numerous, and the most interesting is probably from Biddulph (LAB 148, mono) by the legendary William Primrose, accompanied by Harriet Cohen, famous for her relationship with the composer. However, the historical interest needs to be offset against the distinct lack of bloom of the pre-war recording. Earlier still, the composer and Lionel Tertis recorded the piece in 1929, though their version has remained out of the catalogue for several years.
That same year of 1929 Bax composed the Legend for viola and piano, music of serious and nostalgic character which finds him at his most darkly expressive. The other items, the Concert Piece for viola and piano, and the Trio for violin, viola and piano, are both early works, written well before the First World War. The latter is the more substantial of the two, and must rate as one of the strongest compositions from this phase of Bax’s creative life.
-- Terry Barfoot, MusicWeb International
Bax: Violin Sonatas Vol 2 / Jackson, Wass
Includes work(s) by Arnold Bax. Soloist: Laurence Jackson.
BAX: Violin Sonatas, Vol. 1 (Nos. 1, 3)
Bax: Winter Legends / Wass, Judd, Bournemouth

Ashley Wass and James Judd turn in a finely wrought and atmospheric performance of Bax's Winter Legends--a piano concerto in all but name. A Bax specialist, Wass highlights the alternating delicacy and bravura of the composer's piano writing (especially in the alluring solo that opens the Molto moderato third movement), while Judd is equally adept at the orchestral accompaniment, drawing rich, colorful playing from the Bournemouth Symphony. This recording supplants the previous version by Margaret Fingerhut and Bryden Thompson, as Thompson is not as free with the music as Judd, and Chandos' over-reverberant recording makes Bax's already swimmingly chromatic music sound even more so.
The fillers, the delightful Morning Song "Maytime in Sussex" and the dramatic Saga Fragment, balance out the program quite nicely--about an hour of Bax at one sitting is probably all you need anyway. Naxos' recording captures the full range of the music (it's pretty wide), yet maintains clarity even in the tutti passages. Bax fans will find much to enjoy in this release.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com
Beatles Go Baroque
Beatles Go Baroque, Vol. 2 / Peter Breiner & His Orchestra
Classical musicians have always recognized the musicality and originality of The Beatles’ songs, Leonard Bernstein declaring the Lennon-McCartney composing team ‘the Schuberts of our time’. This sequel to Peter Breiner’s multi-platinum Beatles Go Baroque(Naxos 8.555010) takes the original concept even further, keeping 18th-century masterpieces such as Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Bach’s famously stylish and beautiful Violin Concerto No. 1 largely intact, elegantly combining them with The Beatles’ most enduring melodies to create a joyously genuine 21st-century mashup. Peter Breineris one of the world’s most recorded musicians, with over 200 albums released and multiple streams and downloads. Known as a conductor, composer, pianist and arranger, he has conducted, often doubling as a pianist, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bournemouth, Jerusalem, New Zealand, Moscow and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de France, to mention just a few. His compositions and arrangements have been played in concerts and broadcast worldwide, and some of the most prestigious ballet companies have used his music in numerous performances.
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REVIEW:
With considerable ingenuity, Peter Breiner intertwines original Beatles melodies with unchanged moments from two great composers of the Baroque era. But does this work in the same way as the original Beatles Go Baroque? Well, that will be a personal response. So let’s start from ‘square one’ and simply enjoy the disc as rather quirky light music that is immaculately played by a multi-national chamber orchestra. Breiner’s direction keeps the music bouncing along, while managing to retain respect for the original composer.
– David's Review Corner (David Denton)
BECHET, Sidney: House Party (1943-1952)
BECHET, Sidney: Spreadin' Joy (1940-1950)
Beck: 6 Symphonies, Op. 2
Beck: Symphonies Op 4 No 1-3... / Stilec
The principal competition for this release comes from CPO, and its set of Op. 3/4 played by La Stagione Frankfurt. Those performances employ period instruments, and these do not, but they are every bit as good. The strings play with appropriate rhythmic verve and (typically) smoother timbre, while the harpsichord continuo remains happily where it belongs–in the background. The oboes have a sweet tone characteristic of the Czech school of woodwind playing, and the horns blend well with them. Czech horn playing tends to be softer and more mellow in sonority then most modern schools, and I have to wonder if this is not in fact more “authentic” than the brassy, brazen tone typical of so many period instrument groups.
Whatever the reality, conductor Marek Stilec leads with well-jedged tempos and brings plenty of life to the music–energy without crudeness. This release will give a great deal of pleasure to anyone interested in the best symphonic works of the early classical period.
-- David HurwitzClassicsToday.com
Beck: Symphonies, Op. 3, Nos. 1-4
Beethoven And His Teachers: Music For Piano Four Hands / Bryant, Rachmanov
Performing on early 19th-century pianos from the Frederick Historic Piano Collection, competition prizewinners Dmitry Rachmanov, a Juilliard graduate, and Cullan Bryant, a graduate of Manhattan School of Music, explore the interrelationships between the keyboard music of Beethoven and his principal teachers in this fascinating double-album of rarities for piano four-hands, culminating in a revelatory account of the Great Fugue in Beethoven’s own keyboard arrangement. The distinctive sonorities of these highly esteemed period instruments transport the listener back to the time when Beethoven, his teachers or his own pupils, may have performed this music themselves for the first time.
Beethoven On Guitar
Beethoven Recomposed / Coetzee, Laipang, Gilman, LGT Young Soloists
To mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Russian born arranger Paul Struck has arranged two of the composer’s great mid-period chamber masterpieces for soloist and string ensemble. Expanding the sonorities of the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata – Beethoven’s most important chamber work for violin – allows the sonata’s concertante quality to emerge in a new light. The Cello Sonata No. 3 equally succeeds in conceiving the piano part for ensemble, while exploring fullness of sound and maintaining transparency of texture.
Beethoven Reimagined
Beethoven, L. Van: String Trios (Complete), Vol. 1 - Opp. 3
Beethoven, Schumann, Thalberg, Liszt / Valentina Lisitsa
Beethoven: 13 Times the Same and 13 Times Different / Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra
G-G-G-E flat, better known as "Ta-ta-ta-taaa", are perhaps the four most famous notes in all of classical music, four notes that almost the whole world knows. They form the opening motif of the 5th Symphony in C minor, Opus 67 by Ludwig van Beethoven. In various interpretations by Otto Klemperer, Michael Gielen, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Ádám Fischer, among others, the range of Beethoven's reception at the turn of the millennium is to be compared. At the end the whole symphony will be heard under Robert Trevino: Hear, discover and compare.
Beethoven: 30 of the Best
Beethoven: Archduke Trio - Kakadu Variations - Allegretto, WoO 39
Beethoven: Bagatelles And Dances Vol 3 / Jenö Jandó
The disc opens with six more substantial items, including the two Op. 51 Rondos, the A major Rondo WoO 49, the so-called "Andante favori" (Andante in F WoO 57), and the famous "Rage over a lost penny", otherwise the Rondo a Capriccio in G Op. 129. Again, Jandó's performances are enjoyable and illuminating. Note for example how he highlights contrasts of mood and dynamics so effectively in the last of these works, sharpening the acerbity of its more fevered passages through a clarity of attack that owes more to keyboard articulation than to the pedal--commendable, given his brisk tempo. The two Op. 51 Rondos are also more tersely etched and rigorous than you'll often hear, so I'm inclined to rate Jandó's accounts more highly than Brendel's here. Another welcome addition to a useful budget series.
--Michael Jameson, ClassicsToday.com
