The last disc in Marangoni's highly acclaimed four single disc survey of Clementi's monumental Gradus ad Parnassum.

Muzio Clementi’s legacy to pianists is recognized as highly significant for his introduction of a new virtuosity and exploration of the possibilities of the then recently invented fortepiano. His three Sonatas, Op. 23 were published in London in 1790, their style reflecting Haydn’s tremendous popularity in th city at that time. The later Sonata, Op. 34 offers more dramatic contrast, sparkling with chains of thirds, handcrossing and much use of octaves, comparable resources also being explored in the Fantasia con variazioni on the familiar song ‘Au clair de la lune.’

Muzio Clementi achieved early success as a widely-travelled pianist, performing for nobility and meeting Mozart, his journeys reflected in the Melodies of Different Nations. The Sonata in A flat major is his earliest surviving work, and the incomplete Allegro and Finale may hve been intended as part of the famous Gradus and Parnassum. Based on a popular dance form, the delightful Monferrinas reveal Clementi's charming side, each one presenting a uniquely interesting character.

These four works are among the few surviving examples of Muzio Clementi’s early orchestral music. The two Symphonies, Op. 18 follow Classical models but are full of the surprise modulations and dynamic contrasts to be found in his piano sonatas. The Piano Concerto has a dazzling solo part and some delightful orchestral touches. Clementi’s Symphonies Nos. 1-4 can be heard on Naxos 8.573071 and 8.573112.

Clementi’s influence on pianists has proved enduring, whether through his compositions, books of instruction, or the introduction of new levels of virtuosity on the pianoforte. This album explores a selection of works that have never been recorded, reflecting the variety of his imagination and invention. Mozart heard Clementi perform his Toccata in B-flat major and grudgingly admired the Italian’s technical prowess. The Capriccios trace a quarter century of development – the earlier pieces exude cantabile warmth and bravura, while those published in 1821 belong to the new world of Beethoven.

Muzio Clementi’s legacy to pianists lies not only in his teaching studies and in his exploration of new levels of virtuosity, but in compositions that were widely admired by contemporaries such as Beethoven. This album explores a variety of pieces, a number of which focus on variations. ‘The Black Joke’ was a popular English tune garnished by Clementi with 21 successive variations. Musical Characteristics captures the styles of leading figures of the time, including Mozart, Haydn and Koželuch, while the Variations on ‘Batti, batti’ is a virtuoso transcription. Nicholas Rimmer plays on an original fortepiano made in Clementi’s own workshop around 1806. A pianist with a keen interest in chamber music, Lied, as well as in historical keyboard instruments, Nicholas Rimmer has appeared in many major concert venues in Germany and the UK, among others. His collaborative partnerships have resulted in acclaimed recordings of Brahms and Wolfgang Rihm; the latter (8.572730) received a Diapason d’Or, a Pizzicato Supersonic Award and an International Record Review ‘Outstanding’ Award.

Muzio Clementi's three Op. 40 Sonatas were published in 1802, and in them you can readily hear those qualities that lead directly to Beethoven. For instance, the Italian composer generated great dramatic contrasts through an almost-symphonic grasp of dynamic momentum, and had a knack for effortless asymmetrical phrase shapes and the use of silence to beckon the listener's attention. Clementi's keyboard deployment is more overtly virtuosic and flamboyantly projected than anything his younger rival Mozart concocted, although never as deep. For Clementi, the instrument comes first. Pietro De Maria revels in the music's extroversion and surface virtuosity, and imbues each sonata with refined, humorously pointed fingerwork, exquisite shadings, and elegant phrases timed to a proverbial tee. I hope that this disc will be the forerunner of a complete Clementi cycle from this gifted young pianist, whose brilliant work is gorgeously engineered. A must for piano fans.--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Clementi: Piano Sonatas, Op. 50: No. 1, Op. 34: No. 2 and Op

CLEMENTI Overture in C. Symphonies: No. 3 in G, “The Great National”; No. 4 in D • Francesco La Vecchia, cond; O S di Roma • NAXOS 8.573112 (71:32)


A riddle that may be posited is: “When is a symphony not a symphony?” There are, of course, a number of possible answers, but in the case of Muzio Clementi (1752–1832), this becomes a rather relevant issue. Clementi was an important composer for the keyboard, and his duel with Mozart in front of Emperor Joseph II is the stuff of legend (as are Mozart’s less than charitable comments on Clementi’s music and performance). As a composer of orchestral works, however, the entire situation becomes quite murky. When he established himself in London at the end of the 18th century, he achieved some renown as a teacher and publisher; one only needs note his protégé John Field, who Clementi apparently abandoned while on tour to Russia, as a pupil who was to achieve important things. He did, however, also dabble in the composition of orchestral music, eventually composing an undetermined number of works even as Napoleon was ravaging Europe and finally defeated. To be sure, like most composers of the time, he had a wide range of works, and in 1787 apparently even published a couple of symphonies as his op. 18 (available on the companion disc to this Naxos release). But the late works were and remain problematic, for even though they were featured on concert programs in the post-Napoleonic era in Northern Europe, somehow they failed to survive intact, forcing the inevitable “reconstruction” by modern scholars, namely Alfredo Casella and Pietro Spada. The work of these musicologists has been hampered by a web of conflicting sources, non-sequitur fragments, and portions which have been lost to time. Nonetheless, they have succeeded in cobbling together the works featured on this disc; two complete symphonies and the torso of a third (here euphemistically labeled an Overture).


This is not the time or place to discuss these reconstructions (here done by Spada), but suffice it to say that the editions do seem musically cohesive, albeit with no guarantee that these are in any shape or form what Clementi actually intended in toto . Still, they do allow for a glimpse into his work as an orchestral composer. My only concern is the extraordinarily heavy orchestration, including trombones, which seems to give the works an overweening sense of modernity at times. To be blunt, the textures are often extremely dense, sounding like these were companion pieces to, say, the Schubert Great C-Major, and I am not at all convinced that this is what Clementi, trained in the Italian Classical tradition, was after. The brief notes state that the symphonies are “more closely [tied] to the tradition of Haydn and Mozart than they are to post-Eroica Beethoven,” with a passing nod to the latter’s obvious influence. My view is that this seems far-fetched, particularly given these reconstructions. The “Overture,” for example, has a nicely waltzing main theme foreign to Classicism, and the lyrical second theme is positively Schubertian. It is performed in a Beethovian manner, but the appearance of an um-chuck-chuck accompaniment figure places us fairly close to the world of Italian bel canto opera. It is also rather repetitive. The symphonies, on the other hand, show a wider variety of styles, much of which probably is due to the reconstruction process. The so-called “Great National Symphony” in G Major (which nation I cannot fathom) has a slow, plodding opening followed by an obvious hymn, which is then repeated. Some of the faster portions sound heroic, but then Clementi devolves into a pattern reminiscent of Rossini. The second movement, with its massive brass introduction, also features variations on a hymn, and the Finale is positively in the manner of Haydn’s London symphonies; light and frothy. The D-Major Symphony offers more depth, with a solemn, mysterious D-Minor opening that seems to create a dramatic scene, which then dissipates into an Allegro that would not be out of place in one of Schubert’s early symphonies, both in tone and texture. The cantabile is suitably languid, and the off-beat minuet in B Minor positively Beethovian. Despite the thick orchestration, Haydn returns in the rondo Finale, save for a brief B theme that I would swear is Beethoven.


In short, the reconstructions offer a pretty mixed bag, but in Spada’s defense, I will say that his works reasonably well, given the tortuous path he probably had to negotiate to get a playable, cogent score. As for the performance, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma does a rather nice job. The tempos seem in order and the ensemble fits well together. The sound can be a bit muddy sometimes, particularly when the entire brass corps plays together, but this may be a consequence of the microphone placement or venue (I can’t decide which). My final verdict is that if you are collecting early 19th-century music and want an alternative to the multiple Schubert and Beethoven discs out there, this might prove interesting, but one should be aware of the caveat that the question of whether all of it is as Clementi wished it to be is still open.


FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

CLERAMBAULT: Triomphe d'Iris

Anna Clyne, described as a 'composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods' by The New York Times, is one of the most in-demand composers today, working with orchestras, choreographers, filmmakers and visual artists around the world. Clyne's unique voice combines tradition with postmodern techniques, giving her listeners a sense of musical adventure that is grounded in the past. From the beautiful elegy Within Her Arms to the defiant power of Restless Oceans, Anna Clyne's music strikes a positive and resilient tone.

With orchestral works at the core of his output, the supreme melodic gift that distinguishes the music of Eric Coates earned him a reputation as the ‘uncrowned king of light music’. It was the London Suite that made Coates a household name, with the Cockney exuberance of its third movement, Knightsbridge, capturing the nation’s imagination as a BBC theme tune, as did the rousing march Calling All Workers. Cinderella and The Selfish Giant were inspired by his son’s bedtime stories, the latter absorbing the jazzy dance rhythms of the day. The Dambusters March was one of Coates’ last pieces, and remains one of the most iconic movie themes ever written.

COATES, E.: London Calling - Music for Wind Band

Gloria Coates’s personal sound world is unlike any other in contemporary music. Her ‘Piano Quintet’ is rooted in the poetry of fellow American pioneer Emily Dickinson, with half of the quartet tuned a quarter-tone higher than the other, the strange beauty of the music emerging in glacial landscapes and shimmering microtones. Coates’s ‘Symphony No. 10’ evokes the archaeological ruins of a Celtic tribe, inspiring a torrent of dramatic percussion and long held tones that curve and shake in a moving body of sound. Gloria Coates is the most prolific female symphonist in musical history, and Naxos has an emerging series of her symphonic, chamber and other major works. Of her Symphony No. 15, released on a previous Naxos recording, Fanfare wrote: “the new symphony is still a jaw-dropper.” In general, the symphonies on Naxos come attached to other larger-scaled works and the chamber music (predominantly quartets) is programmed together. This is the first release to program a symphony and a chamber work in the same album.

Eric Coates was a master of refined and beautiful melodies, making him a household name during the golden years of British light music in the first half of the 20th century. The Four Ways Suite takes us to all four points of the compass, including exotic China and the jazz rhythms of America, while Springtime evokes both sweeping optimism and soulful memories of a lost age. The virtuoso Saxo-Rhapsody is one of the era’s major saxophone works, and Sleepy Lagoon remains famous as the signature tune to BBC Radio’s Desert Island Discs. High Flight March was to be Coates’ last composition. Since 1992, conductor Andrew Penny has made over 50 recordings for the Naxos and Marco Polo labels. Much of the repertoire is British music and includes symphonies by Arnold and Havergal Brian, film music by Vaughan Williams and Walton, theatre music by Sullivan and Holbrooke, and light music by Coates and Arnold. Penny has been on the instrumental music staff at Hymers College since 1977 and is the longest serving musical director of the Hull Philharmonic Orchestra. He was awarded the MBE for services to music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2014.

“Perched at a sonic event horizon, the nine string quartets of composer Gloria Coates exquisitely warp listeners’ sense of place. The floorboards yield like latex and the supernovae above are seduced to within an arm’s reach through her elongating, microtonal alchemy. In the deft hands of the UK’s Kreutzer Quartet, the nocturnal harmonies found here are rendered not bleak, but radiant.” – Doyle Armbrust, Time Out Chicago


At long last, the aural equivalent to Salvador Dali's melted watches! Gloria Coates (b. 1939) has created a string quartet language out of glissandos: long, short, abrupt, gradual, creaky, rounded, often dissonant, sometimes consonant. The music conjures up vivid aural images. The Fifth Quartet, for instance, begins with delicate high-register, insect-like squeals. These assiduously descend into detuned, slow moving canons that resemble a chorus of drunken cartoon cats and coyotes intoning half-remembered hymns and barroom ballads. Its second movement is built from glissandos that ascend and descend in super-slow motion. By contrast, the third movement nearly recaps the second at a hundred times the speed, the double stops suggesting a veritable orchestra of quartets whizzing before you in a race against time.


The brief First Quartet dates from the composer's late 20s and reveals that the basic elements of her present style already were in place, if not so extreme in their deployment. I especially like the Sixth Quartet's concluding "Evanescence" movement, where palpable melodic shapes emerge from intertwining long, sustained, slowly modulated glissandos, demarcated by occasional gentle pizzicato dabs. If Coates is the painter, the Kreutzer Quartet is the widely varied palette of colors and the big, austere canvas. The sheer variety of nuance and timbre the players bring to these scores will be hard to equal, let alone surpass. Kyle Gann's exemplary notes are analytical without being academic.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
Reviewing original release of Quartets 1, 5 & 6

I get the feeling that Gloria Coates does not spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not other people enjoy her music. That is a compliment, not a complaint. Whether or not you like what she does, she does it with a very personal style and with great conviction. The present CD, the fifth of Coates’s music to be released under Naxos’s American Classics imprint, ranks very low on the list of CDs one would play as light background music during a convivial dinner with friends. Coates’s music, this CD included, forces one to consider why we listen to music at all, and to examine what we mean by “entertainment.” To my thinking, entertainment, in the usual sense of the word, is overrated. We need to devote equal time and effort to moving ourselves into new emotional and intellectual territories, even at the risk of causing ourselves a little pain.


Coates is an American who now lives in Germany. In an interview, she describes the German culture as “very serious and formal,” and comments, “One is left alone much of the time unless he plans ahead.” Is there anyone in the United States who is writing music quite like Coates’s? Not that I am aware of. Her music says difficult things—things Americans seem unwilling to say at this point.


This is the world premiere recording of her recent (2007) String Quartet No. 9. The work is in two movements, both of them slow, and both of them making an almost obsessively detailed exploration of texture and sound. The first is a canon and nearly a palindrome, although the materials thus treated are not only melodic but also textural. The long, siren-like glissando, a trademark of Coates’s music from the start of her career, appears six minutes in and produces an unsettling effect. The listener also is thrown off kilter by pitch, because the first violin and the viola are tuned down one quarter-tone. Glissandos occur in the second movement, albeit within a narrower range; imagine listening to the slow movement of a late Beethoven quartet on a turntable whose motor is giving out and from an LP that has been pressed off-center. As Kyle Gann writes in his booklet notes, “The atmosphere is unworldly, creepily dissonant and yet serene, a kind of music of the spheres.”


The Sonata for Violin Solo (2000) allows aspects of Coates’s compositional style to stand out in stark relief. The movement titles—Prelude, Fantasia, Berceuse, and Hornpipe—suggest Handel or Bach, or at any rate more “traditional” composers, but once again, Coates goes her own fascinating way.


One might think that Emily Dickinson would elicit a brighter response from any composer. All of the Lyric Suite’s (1996) seven movements are headed by a fragment from Dickinson’s poetry. The Belle of Amherst was a mystic and a visionary, though, and Coates’s music underscores the notion that much of Dickinson’s work was actually quite strange, considering the time and place in which she lived. Once again, unusual playing techniques, including strings tuned a quarter-tone flat, create a sound world that is eerily beautiful and queasy.


For Coates newbies, any of the discs featuring her orchestral works might be a slightly easier introduction. Nevertheless, I feel that the present CD is an honest representation of who she is and what she does.


The Kreutzer Quartet has participated in earlier Coates recordings, and the quartet’s first violinist, Peter Sheppard Skærved, has championed Coates for her music for two decades. (Neil Heyde is the quartet’s cellist.) It is hard to know what to say about the performances, except that there would be little point in performing and recording this music if one didn’t believe in it. Separately and together, the quartet’s members, plus pianist Chadwick, are committed to the task, and carry it out with deep concentration.


As usual, the cover art is a painting by Gloria Coates, whose visual art looks much like her music sounds. As the saying goes, when God gave out talent, she stood in line twice.


FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle
Reviewing Quartet no 9, Violin Sonata, Lyric Suite

Enjoy this full-flavored selection of music whilst sipping on a coffee from your favorite cup. Let our blended brew of aural aromas bring you down to earth from the day’s highs, and experience how our choice of works gives grounds for escape from the grind of the day, filtering out downbeat moments before stirring yourself back into the daily routine. This release, part of the Naxos Lifestyle Series, features works from famous classical composers like Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms, as well as more modern composers like Bernstein and Scriabin. Only the finest musicians have been chosen to perform these works, including Idil Biret, the Bas que National Orchestra, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Maria Kliegel, and more.

The Hiawatha trilogy, with its stirring overture, established Coleridge-Taylor as one of Britain’s leading young composers and stimulated commissions in a wide variety of music. The Othello Suite was written for a stage production of the play, its powerful and contrasting themes illustrating the composer’s prowess in characterization. Redolent of popular ballads and romances, the Petite Suite de Concert is a masterpiece of light music, while the charming Romance of the Prairie Lilies shows Coleridge-Taylor’s lasting influence on future generations of British composers.

This album showcases recent works for two guitars by the Chilean composer and guitarist Javier Contreras. He is joined by fellow Chilean guitarist and pedagogue, Jose Antonio Escobar - a decisive figure in Contreras's musical development - to explore the composer's inventive harmonic and cosmopolitan influences, which range from South American folk music to jazz. The Sonata for Two Guitars evokes the uniquely versatile sirilla dance in a work that marries introspection with vitality and virtuoso flourish. Elsewhere, Patagonian folkloric elements, exotic dances, high-speed dialogues and exquisite colours are conjured up in music of subtlety and energy.

Sir John Dankworth was inspired by Benny Goodman' playing to study clarinet at the Royal Academy: his delightful Suite for Emma was composed for Emma Johnson, former BBC Young Musician of the Year, who performs it on this disc.

Aaron Copland wrote his rarely-heard ballet Hear Ye! Hear Ye! for Ruth Page, the dancer and choreographer who was to become the Grande Dame of American ballet. Its scenario is a murder in a nightclub and the ensuing trial in a Chicago courtroom. Copland infused the score with the spirit of his jazz-influenced pieces, controversially distorting part of the National Anthem, and infiltrating music from some of his earlier works. In complete contrast, Appalachian Spring is his most famous work, a true American masterpiece founded on transfigured dance tunes and song melodies.

Aaron Copland's suite from the ballet Appalachian Spring won him a Pulitzer Prize and global recognition. The famous Quaker song 'Simple Gifts' and the American ambience of this suite contrast with the more modernist Symphonic Ode, which conveys rugged grandeur through an uncompromising structural unity. Neglected since the late 1960s, Paul Creston's music was once amongst the most frequently performed of any American composer. His poetic Symphony No. 3 is an orchestral Life of Christ, movingly expressed through themes inspired by Gregorian chant.

This disc substantially duplicates the repertoire on an all-Copland program produced by DG with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. However, where DG included the Short Symphony, Naxos offers the Clarinet Concerto. While the Nashville Chamber Orchestra doesn't offer quite the tonal refinement and polish of Orpheus, it basically plays just as well, and its slightly weightier, gutsier, more rustic sonority arguably suits the music even better. In the famous rehearsal disc that accompanied Copland's own recording of the original chamber version of Appalachian Spring, he can be heard exhorting his players not to sentimentalize the music: "...it's a little too much on the Massenet-side," he tells them. Obviously Paul Gambill understands this point, for he offers interpretations ideally poised between warmth and simplicity, full of those clean and clear sonorities that Copland made his own.

It should come as no surprise that, as a major musical capital, Nashville offers a large pool of excellent professional performers from which to draw, and as with its full-sized symphony, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra obviously employs some major talent, particularly among its strings. Copland's music is full of complex rhythms, often combining them with stratospheric violin writing. At such moments as the "Danza de Jalisco" from Three Latin American Sketches, or the initial allegro of Appalachian Spring, the Nashville players offer impressive accuracy of both rhythm and pitch. Quiet City benefits from some smooth-as-silk trumpeting from Scott Moore, while Laura Arden (principal clarinet with the Atlanta Symphony) turns in a masterful performance of the Clarinet Concerto. She commands a lovely, liquid tone in the lyrical opening movement (her pianissimo playing at the end is exquisite) and captures the finale's jazz elements without ever turning raucous.

The version of Appalachian Spring offered here is billed as the "Original Ballet Suite". It is not. The "original" ballet suite is the full orchestral version most familiar to music lovers, dating from just after the premiere in the mid-1940s. More than a decade later, in 1958, Copland published a new orchestration of the suite in which he returned to the chamber instrumentation used in the full-length ballet, allowing the option of a few extra strings (which I assume are used here), and this is what Naxos gives us. Gambill conducts this piece as well as anyone ever has; he's particularly adept at sustaining the flow of the slower sections without letting the music sag, and he gets an astonishingly full sound from his ensemble (listen to the focused tone of the basses when they first enter in the "Simple Gifts" variations). Sonics of ideal transparency and presence set the seal on a disc that's practically perfect from just about any perspective. [12/14/2002]

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Leonard Slatkin’s Copland is always first rate, and this release is no exception. He already recorded the complete Billy the Kid in St. Louis for EMI, but that disc could be anywhere right now, except readily available, and so if you want the entire work this performance is just the ticket. I actually prefer the full-length ballet to the suite. You get about ten minutes more music, all of it worth hearing, and the result is a work that has a more compelling range of narrative and less of that picture postcard Americana feel that just might be starting to sound a tad old. It only remains to be said that throughout the disc the Detroit Symphony plays terrifically.

Grohg is early Copland, but much of it got reused in the Dance Symphony. Inspired by the silent film Nosferatu, the music is aptly dark and spooky, with a decadent sheen similar to what we find in, say, Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin. That said, you can plainly hear the composer to come in such numbers as the Dance of the Street-Walker, with its angular sonorities and burlesque atmosphere. As with Billy, Slatkin proves a completely convincing guide to a remarkably assured piece of writing. The coupling of these two works also makes for a more interesting release than usual, and justifies purchase even if you already own a Billy the Kid or three. First rate sonics too.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Although it's played and recorded frequently, there is a genuine difference between a decent performance of Rodeo and a really excellent one such as we have here. This difference can be summed up in two words: rhythm and tempo. When it comes to rhythm, it's not merely a question of hitting the syncopations in the opening movement and concluding Hoedown, but of being both accurate and relaxed enough to let the music swing. This is a quality that Bernstein's performances always had, and JoAnn Falletta understands it too. This gives the music both the necessary verve in the outer sections and real balletic grace in the two inner ones, reminding us that we are, after all, hearing a story told through physical movement.


When it comes to tempo, the issue is at once simpler and less impressionistic. In Buckaroo Holiday, speeds have to be quick enough to prevent the music from breaking up into discrete, detached bits. Once again, Falletta & Co. come through with flying colors. The music never sounds mechanical, disconnected, or excessively "Stravinskian". Copland disliked excessive sentimentality, but his music is never dry (the rich, warm, but clear sonics also help in this department). And what turns out to be a successful recipe for Rodeo works just as well in all of the other pieces here. Prairie Journal (a.k.a. Music for Radio) is one of the least known of Copland's "Westerns", but it's every bit as enjoyable as the three great ballets, and this is as fine a performance as you will hear anywhere. Letter from Home is an exercise in nostalgia that never turns overly sweet.


Best of all, perhaps, is The Red Pony, one of the great film scores of all time, and a glorious work that for some reason seldom gets played live. Copland's invention is of exceptionally high quality throughout, and once again you can hear from the unusual freshness of the opening bars how effortlessly Falletta and the Buffalo players get into the spirit of the music. There are so many delightful moments, from the raucous Circus Music to the unforgettable Walk to the Bunkhouse, a piece that has become the very essence of musical Americana. Finally, it's great to see one of the very popular pieces, like Rodeo, coupled with some less ubiquitous examples of Copland's genius. A wonderful disc! [10/20/2006]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

REVIEW:

The Bratislava orchestra play with such spontaneous enjoyment in Rodeo and Billy the Kid that one cannot help but respond. Gunzenhauser, a fine conductor of Czech music, is equally at home in Copland’s folksy, cowboy idiom and all this music has plenty of colour and atmosphere. If some of the detail in Appalachian Spring is less sharply etched than with Bernstein, the closing pages are tenderly responsive. The recording is admirably colourful and vivid, with a fine hall ambience, and the spectacle of the Fanfare for the Common Man is worth anybody’s money. A bargain.

-- Penguin Guide

In the late 1980s, Naxos released a perfectly decent bargain version of Rodeo, recorded in Bratislava under the direction of Stephen Gunzenhauser. Listening to it again it’s still very enjoyable. However, the label has steadily progressed over the years and in this latest offering Rodeo isn’t just a good bargain version. It’s a very good version at any price and should be snapped up by anyone remotely interested in the music of Aaron Copland.

In Rodeo Leonard Slatkin doesn’t match the snappy, hard driven virtuosity of Bernstein on CBS - nobody does - but many find that disc lacking in relaxation and quite wearing. The general approach in Detroit is somewhat more laid-back - refined, even - but that doesn’t imply that the execution isn’t rhythmically tight. This is playing of the highest calibre and time and again Slatkin reveals details that can be hidden or glossed over in other recordings. The timings for the opening Buckaroo Holiday are 7:00 (Bernstein) and 7:55 (Slatkin). In listening to both, putting the hair-raising Bernstein virtuosity to one side for a moment, I find the Slatkin to be more engaging and involving. It doesn’t just pass you by; it draws you in. From the opening bars you hear a deep sonorous bottom end, full-toned brass, clean string sound and biting transients. Later on the throatily realistic double bass section introduces some trombone playing that just about stays this side of becoming tasteless. The glissandi are pretty outrageous but it’s a piece that’s full of fun at the end of the day. The extended version of Saturday Night Waltz includes an entertaining honky-tonk piano solo. Corral Nocturne is suitably sensuous and the concluding Hoe-Down clocks in at 4:47 compared to 3:06 (Bernstein), 3:16 (Gunzenhauser) and 3:18 (Johanos/Dallas, a fine disc on Vox). These timings are somewhat misleading. Admittedly, Slatkin does take the music at a slightly slower tempo than usual but he also includes a substantial section of music that isn’t to be heard in the other recordings. It brings Rodeo to a very satisfying conclusion.

I have never heard Dance Panels before and quite frankly I’m amazed that such a great piece has been so overlooked. The music is closer to the sound-worlds of Quiet City and Appalachian Spring and makes a welcome contrast to the preceding Rodeo. The music is gentle, ruminative and sophisticated in nature. Even in the more invigorating passages such as the Scherzando of the third movement and the mercurial Con brio of the fifth section (a percussion showcase) the orchestration remains controlled and the very opposite of brash. The woodwind excel throughout and there are some gorgeous sonorities and beautiful tunes. This is Copland at his finest and it’s quite a find. I challenge anyone not to fall for this music.

The two fillers are despatched with aplomb. El Salón México is superb, opening as it does with its sleazy trumpet solo and cheeky bassoons. Slatkin yet again demonstrates that music such as this doesn’t have to be fast and furious to make its mark. The slow sections conjure up scenes of lazy days in the sun and that’s what Mexico, as pictured by the composer, should be all about isn’t it? The playing is never over the top. It’s done with great taste and refinement but there’s not one boring bar to be heard. All the orchestral soloists have a field day. The closing bars are as thrilling as you could wish for. The concluding Danzón Cubano, one of Copland’s real pot-boilers, brings the disc to a rousing end.

In summary, this is a great CD featuring top recommendations for Rodeo and El Salón México and a wonderful rarity in the shape of Dance Panels that I urge everyone to hear. The Detroit Orchestra, in superb form for their inspirational conductor, are captured in spectacular and beautiful sound.

– John Whitmore, MusicWeb International

All of these works predate Aaron Copland's populist American ballets, but they reveal perhaps even more tellingly just what a talented and individual voice he had right from the start. The most important piece here is the Short Symphony (a.k.a. Symphony No. 2), a stunning essay in rhythmic lyricism that was considered all but unplayable when written in 1933--so much so that Copland rewrote it as a sextet. This performance hasn't quite the sharpness and sizzle of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra recording for DG, but the Bournemouth Symphony under Marin Alsop shows itself more than capable of mastering the music's intricacies.

The other two performances are even finer. Alsop catches the bittersweet lyricism of the First Symphony's outer movements very affectingly, while the whirlwind central scherzo is dazzling. The same observation holds true of the Dance Symphony, which works its way to a fine frenzy in a finale that strikingly anticipates the mature composer of the 1940s. Copland's bright, open textures come across well in the problematic acoustic of the Poole concert hall; this is one of Naxos' better recordings from this locale, graced with some really impressive bass sonorities. This is an intelligently planned and impressively executed disc.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Premiered in 1946, a year after the end of World War II, Copland’s iconic Third Symphony was described by the composer as ‘a wartime piece- or, more accurately, an end-of-war piece- intended to reflect the euphoric spirit of the country at the time.’ The fourth movement, heard on this recording in its original uncut form, opens by quoting one of his most well-known pieces, Fanfare for the Common Man. Copland described the Three Latin American Sketches ‘as being just what the title says. The tunes, the rhythms and the temperament of the pieces are folksy, while the orchestration is bright and snappy and the music sizzles along.’ The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is known for trailblazing performances, visionary conductors, collaborations with the world’s foremost musical artists, and an ardent commitment to Detroit. As a community-supported orchestra, the continued success and growth of the institution is driven by generous giving by individuals and institutions at all levels. Esteemed conductor Leonard Slatkin became the DSO’s twelfth Music Director, endowed by the Kresge Foundation, in 2008. With growing attendance and unwavering philanthropic support from the Detroit community, the DSO’s performances include Classical, Pops, Jazz, Young People’s, and Neighborhood concerts, and collaborations with high-profile artists from Steven Spielberg to Kid Rock.

REVIEW:

Leonard Slatkin can always be counted on to offer a new take on familiar classics. He recorded an excellent Copland Third for RCA back in his St. Louis days, and this performance is almost identical in terms of tempo and expression—but not quite. Copland’s publishers, Boosey and Hawkes, in their infinite wisdom and desire to make a buck or two, have republished the composer’s Third Symphony with its original ending. If you have an older score, you might still find it there. Later printings removed the bits that Copland cut at Leonard Bernstein’s suggestion.

Now we can all hear definitively that those cuts were a good idea. The finale is already one of the most earsplitting essays in populist pomposity in the entire symphonic literature. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a blast as it stands and I wouldn’t change a note. The original, in comparison, sounds gratuitously, unconvincingly prolonged (sound clip), and before we start blathering about the revision not representing Copland’s intentions, let’s note that both of the composer’s own recordings of the symphony—made decades apart—observe the cuts (there are two, actually, one very tiny).

That said, this is in every respect a terrific performance, excitingly played and conducted, powerfully recorded, and with a nice bonus in the form of the Three Latin American Sketches. As a collector, I am happy to have the opportunity to hear Copland’s first thoughts, but one fine recording of them is enough.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Puerto Rican composer and guitarist Ernesto Cordero dedicated his Concierto Festivo to celebrated soloist Pepe Romero, who describes the work as having ‘divine inspiration’. These works derive their warmth of expression and rhythmic influence from the composer’s native Caribbean island, and the two violin concertos ĺnsula and Concerto Tropical both contain descriptive elements from landscape and nature. ĺnsula is dedicated to renowned violinist and conductor Guillermo Figueroa, and I Solisti di Zagreb are recognised as one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras.

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Exemplary performances by everyone make these concerti shine all the brighter…the recordings are good. They project a modest soundstage with the soloists well placed and balanced in a reverberant acoustic that will appeal to those liking wetter sonics. The guitar is beautifully captured, while the string sound is generally pleasant…

© 2011 Classical Lost and Found

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The guitar concerto – written for and here played by its dedicatee, Pepe Romero - is exciting and draws on the harsh rhythmic bark of violent strumming. There are moments when one is aware of Cordero’s debt to Rodrigo but it is by no means immanent. The writing, across all three works, puts me in mind of Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas but also of Schnittke’s super-romantic steely hyper-baroque writing. Casting a benign light across these concertos is a presence I had not expected: that of Vaughan Williams. More than occasionally RVW’s characteristic pastoral pentatonic sound comes to mind. It’s a foundation or an overlay rather than a facsimile of The Lark Ascending. Even so the two works for violin and orchestra are rather reminiscent of The Lark but perceived through the intensifying lens of late-twentieth century angst. The orchestration is delicate and the ideas often tender. However, when the music becomes animated the style moves towards the stony despair and the metallic exuberance of the Shostakovich violin concertos. The useful liner-notes are by the composer.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International