SCARLATTI, D.: Keyboard Sonatas (Complete), Vol. 2

Scarlatti, D.: Keyboard Sonatas (Complete), Vol. 3

Benjamin Frith is no stranger to Naxos customers, having previously graced the catalog with a Mendelssohn cycle, John Field's Nocturnes, and other releases. Here he makes his first (and hopefully not last) appearance in Naxos' ongoing series devoted to the complete Scarlatti Sonatas. The playing is splendid. Frith's varied and intelligently deployed dynamic palette, together with his rounded, singing tone, conjures an intimate, poetic aura that's diametrically opposed to the brash, vivacious sound world Mikhail Pletnev brings to this repertoire. I like how Frith keeps the textures alive and vibrant by making very subtle changes in voicing on the repeats (the bass lines and trills in the D major K. 214 sonata, for instance). His unruffled, effortless scales and arpeggios may not bite with the individuality of a Horowitz or Schiff, but their elegant symmetry still delights the ear. With Naxos' first-class sonics, fine notes, and modest price, you can't go wrong. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Renowned as a soloist and as a member of the Amadeus Guitar Duo, Dale Kavanagh is one of the most prominent classical guitarists of her generation. With this album she not only plays solo works composed for leading guitarists all over the world, but is also joined by acclaimed and award-winning colleagues in duos such as the joyful Campanellas and the tragic The Ghost of Peggy's Cove. Written as a celebration of the virtuoso artistry of three giants of the international guitar scene, Loaded covers a breathtaking range of emotion and technique.

Spaniard Joaquin Rodrigo is probably the most outstanding composer of guitar music of the 20th century. He composed numerous works for solo guitar and guitar duo, including some of the most substantial pieces in the classical guitar repertoire. This release from Dale Kavanagh and the State Philharmonic of Arad presents several of his works for guitar and orchestra and solo guitar. Canadian-born Dale Kavanagh is one of the guitar world’s most gifted interpreters. She has been a top prize-winner in Spain’s “Segovia Competition,” Italy’s “Gargnano Competition,” Switzerland’s “Neuchatel Competition,” and Finland’s “Scandinavian International Guitar Competition.” She performs internationally as a soloist and in the Amadeus Guitar Duo, and has given more than 1,500 concerts in more than 70 countries.

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REVIEW:

The music of Rodrigo simultaneously traverses the technical limits of the guitar and a broad emotional range; thus, it is perfect for guitarist Dale Kavanagh. Like her personality, the playing is direct and personable, while at the same time precise and deeply passionate. Having honed these works on many a concert stage, Kavanagh gives each phrase an unencumbered intention and direction that never fails to communicate to the listener.

– American Record Guide

Includes work(s) by Luigi Dallapiccola. Soloists: Duccio Ceccanti, Roberto Prosseda.

DANCE MUSIC FROM OLD VIENNA

Richard Danielpour is one of the most decorated, frequently performed and recorded composers of his generation. His commissions include works for some of the most celebrated artists of our day. Each of the Twelve Études is dedicated to a particular pianist with its own substantial technical demands, but all are conceived as concert pieces with a self-contained narrative. The variations in the Piano Fantasy are based on the final chorale of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. All of these world premiere recordings were made in close collaboration between the composer and acclaimed pianist Stefano Greco.

REVIEW:

In the 40-minute cycle, Twelve Etudes for Piano, the composer roams through a wide variety of moods, but also presents challenges to the pianist such as playing with the left hand on the keys and plucking strings inside the piano with the right hand. Stefano Greco masters all of this with aplomb.

In addition to two miniatures, the Piano Fantasy subtitled ‘Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden’ from 2008 is also heard. It is based in continuing variations on the final chorale from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, although the theme does not appear until the end of the work. This piece also shows Greco as an excellent performer.

-- Pizzicato

Musicians ranging from Leonard Bernstein to the Emerson String Quartet have championed award-winning composer Richard Danielpour. Lacrimae Beati owes its origin to Mozart’s Requiem and was conceived after a perilous flight in 2002. Darkness in the Ancient Valley, a symphony in five movements inspired by recent events in Iran, utilizes a wide range of Persian folk-melodies and Sufi rhythms. A Woman’s Life, a cycle of poems by Maya Angelou, charts a moving trajectory from childhood to old age.

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REVIEW:

The program closes with A Woman’s Life (2007), based on a cycle of poems on that topic by Maya Angelou, who read the cycle, apparently unforgettably, to Danielpour and his wife in 2006. These songs are pitch perfect and memorably touching. I was enthralled from the start—a childhood poem of devastating innocence cloaked with an aura usually reserved for the likes of Barber—and if you love his music and American song repertoire in general you must hear this cycle. The finale is unspeakably beautiful. Ms Brown sings with loving understanding. The Nashville players sound great, as is usual these days.

–American Record Guide

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

A 60th Annual Grammy Award Nominee

Acclaimed as one of America’s leading contemporary composers, Richard Danielpour wrote Songs of Solitude as a response to the events of 9/11. Drawing on the poems of W.B. Yeats, the work enshrines a sense of economy and sparseness, formed of a set of six powerful orchestral songs. The motivating force for War Songs was a series of photographs of the young men and women killed in the Iraq War. The song cycle, with its texts by Walt Whitman, was written for the Nashville Symphony to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. Toward the Splendid City is a portrait of New York City driven by Danielpour’s love-hate relationship with his hometown. This is vivid music, subtle tonal-modern tour de force expressions, the main works heartfelt reactions to two of the most difficult historical periods in the USA.

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REVIEWS:

Performances are exceptionally well-wrought, detailed and strong. The sound is excellent. The music unforgettable. Very much recommended.

– Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

Thomas Hampson…performs the music with just the right blend of evenness and emotional intensity, and the effect of the final and longest song, Come Up from the Fields Father, which lasts half the length of the whole cycle, is especially affecting here. The accompaniment by the Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero is nuanced and subtle throughout, fitting the music very well indeed. Hampson and Guerrero are also well-teamed for Songs of Solitude.

– Infodad.com (October 2016)

This sixth Naxos American Classics album of the music of Richard Danielpour presents world premiere recordings of Richard Danielpours' last three string quartets. No. 7 includes the appearance in the finale of soprano Hila Plitmann. Each of these three quartets is informed by a particular theme: String Quartet No. 5, subtitled ‘In Search of La vita nuova,’ reflects Richard Danielpour’s relationship with Italy over the decades, conveying a sense of journey and discovery expressed in its ultimately elliptical trajectory. Concerned with the quartet as a metaphor for family, String Quartet No. 6 explores ideas of distance, time and ultimately, leave-taking. String Quartet No. 7, subtitled ‘Psalms of Solace,’ pursues the search for the Divine, successive movements taking intellect, the force of will, and romantic love as their subject before the appearance in the finale of a soprano voice.

These three recordings cement the bond between the award-winning composer Richard Danielpour and the conductor Misha Rachlevsky, one of the composer’s most dedicated and perceptive interpreters. It was Rachlevsky who gave the American premiere of Symphony for Strings, a transcription of the Sixth String Quartet- a work saturated in farewells, complete with a hymn and variations. Talking to Aphrodite is the result of a collaboration between Danielpour and the writer Erica Jong, while Kaddish addresses the eternal issues of life, death and eventual peace.

The first book of The Enchanted Garden was composed in 1992; the five preludes in that cycle were musical responses to dreams that I had and had eventually written about. The second book, written nearly seventeen years later in 2009, includes seven preludes; experiences and memories both recent and historical are the sources here and the origins of the titles. The fine line between dream and memory, between reality and fantasy has always intrigued me. The ancient Greeks believed that the 'real' world was the unseen world. – Richard Danielpour

Winner of the 2020 GRAMMY award for Best Choral Performance and a nominee for Best Contemporary Classical Composition!

Richard Danielpour’s dramatic oratorio The Passion of Yeshua- a work which has evolved over the last 25 years- is an intensely personal telling of the final hours of Christ on Earth. It incorporates texts from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian gospels inspiring extraordinarily beautiful music that stresses the need for human compassion and forgiveness. Danielpour returns to the scale and majesty of Bach in the oratorio, creating choruses that are intense and powerful, and giving both Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene a central place in a work of glowing spirituality. Conductor JoAnn Falletta considers The Passion of Yeshua to be “a classic for all time.”

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REVIEW:

Naxos’ world première recording of The Passion of Yeshua (2017) does full justice to Danielpour’s vision, thanks to the strong involvement and fine vocal talents of half a dozen soloists and the highly committed, knowing and knowledgeable conducting with which JoAnn Falletta shapes the performances of the UCLA Chamber Singers and the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra.

– Infodad.com

The world-premiere recording of Richard Danielpour's Toward a Season of Peace offers a dynamic performance that impresses with its immense forces and energetic playing and compels an emotional response with its pacifist sentiments and beautiful lyricism. Danielpour's style is instantly accessible by virtue of its rich tonality and poignant melodies, and the flow of the music gives his oratorio a traditional appeal, with the right balance of dramatic tension and comforting release. The setting of excerpts from the Masoretic text of the Bible, the Persian verses of Rumi (in an English translation), and an Arabic poem by Al Mutanabbi brings languages into a convergence somewhat reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein's mixing of Latin, English, and Hebrew in his Mass (1971), and the ecumenical nature of Toward a Season of Peace also brings that theater piece to mind. Unlike Bernstein, and to Danielpour's credit, he doesn't mingle elements of popular music with his neo-Romantic choruses, and he avoids the trendiness that dates Mass, aiming instead for a more universal and timeless prayer for peace. At many points, the mystical choruses of Vaughan Williams and Holst spring to mind, and feel stronger than any modern influence. Perhaps this oratorio is more inspirational than motivational, and it may join other works earnestly dedicated to world peace that have fallen by the wayside, but the performers aren't to blame if that happens. Soprano Hila Plitmann, the Pacific Chorale, and the Pacific Symphony, conducted by Carl St. Clair, give a lovely and reverent performance that is gorgeous in its harmonies and textures, and ultimately moving because of its simplicity and directness.

-- All Music Guide

Includes christmas carol(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Musica Ficta Vocal Ensemble Copenhagen. Conductor: Bo Holten.
Includes christmas song(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Musica Ficta Vocal Ensemble Copenhagen. Conductor: Bo Holten.

DANZI: Bassoon Concertos

DANZI: Wind Quintets, Op. 56, Nos. 1-3 / Wind Sextet, Op. 1

DANZI: Wind Quintets, Op. 68, Nos. 1-3 / Horn Sonata, Op. 44

One of China's leading contemporary composers, Jia Daqun has often drawn on the traditional music of his native country. Flavour of Bashu derives its themes from Sichuan opera with its astrigency, rhythmic uncertainty and distinctive piquancy. The Prospect of Coloured Desert is one of his best-loved works, composed for Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. Counterpoint of Times is a chamber concerto of fascinating complexity, whilst the String Quartet has been enriched with folk tunes and vivid performing techniques. Volume 1 is available for download on 970241.

Jia Daqun is one of his country’s most internationally admired composers, whose Flavor of Bashu was named Chinese Classic Musical Composition of the 20th century by the Chinese government. The evocative percussion works here exemplify his ability to combine a variety of musical cultures and instruments in a single work. In Pole this is achieved through the fusing of Chinese traditional percussive instruments and those from the West, whilst in The Song without Words a panoply of vivid instrumentation celebrates the quarter-century of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. Jia draws on elegant folk customs and uses evocative native instruments such as gongs, ban-drum and muyus (Chinese temple block) in the exotic Sound Games.

The prolific and internationally admired Jia Daqun is one of China’s leading composers. The Wave of the Surging Thoughts is a large-scale symphonic concerto-suite which achieves a high degree of unity through the use of formal variations. Bashu Capriccio is an ardent symphonic prelude that celebrates the cultural traditions and simple folk customes of Bashu, the ancient name of Sichuan province. Two albums of Daqun's chamber music can be heard on 9.70241 and 8.579011, with an album of percussion works on 8.579028.

Singaporean composer and conductor, Darius Lim, incorporates theatrical elements into his choral compositions, taking audiences on an emotional journey. The 14 works in this album attest to his belief in the passion, joy and transcendence of the human spirit, whether as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, or to the beauties of nature and imaginary fantasy worlds. Lim's music embraces the mystical, the magical and the ethereal in ways that stir the imagination and touch the heart.

The Glogauer Liederbuch is a forgotten treasure a rich repository of fifteenth-century music. It contains 292 songs devotional chants and instrumental pieces which were performed by educated enthusiasts or students not by professional musicians. The collection also includes several pieces known as 'Schwanz' (tail) which probably designates them as dances ('schwanzen' being a derivation of 'tanzen' i.e. dancing). The music sung or played in this Lower Silesian monastic community originated in many different countries but all the pieces show a richly developed standard. The Liederbuch is the oldest known set of part-books from central Europe.

The Partiturbuch Ludwig takes its name from its compiler, Jacob Ludwig, a court musician active in Gotha in the mid-years of the seventeenth century. In 1662 he presented his folio of contemporary instrumental compositions to Duke August, a former employer of his from Ludwig’s time in Wolfenbüttel. There are about one hundred works, mainly though not exclusively cast in sonata form, and all written in Germany though not necessarily by Germans. This disc casts a shrewd eye over the whole corpus of this folio and has selected a representative and really rather impressive selection to reflect its breadth and range.

One of the most obvious highlights is the work of Antonio Bertali, who contributed the most music (eighteen pieces) to the folio. He was the Kapellmeister in Vienna and was a significant figure, composing music for successive Emperors and achieving a position of pan-European eminence. Born in Verona he was originally a violinist and this accounts for his mastery of composition for the instrument. The Ciaconna in C major is a ceaselessly imaginative work, full of probing musicianship and dextrously laid out. The Sonata a 3 taps into the nobility of utterance of which he was so adroit an exponent – though it also shows another side to him, with the perky bassoon line adding spice and wit, and the mobility of the writing adding colour and dynamic contrast.

Schmelzer’s Sonata variata is lyrical, elegant and is warmly played here, with charming dynamism of expression and very touching diminuendi. Capricornus directed church music in Pressburg (now Bratislava) but his gifts were by no means confined to the vocal. He writes a Ciaconna of considerable standing and the performers here do well to explore his supportive theorbo and harpsichord writing - it’s very rewarding. We finish with yet another Ciaconna, a form at which these Italian and German composers excelled, and that’s the one by Nathanael Schnittelbach. Resident in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, Schnittelbach arrived via Gdansk in 1655 and carved out a successful career in his newly adopted city. It’s all the more disappointing then to find that this is his only surviving solo violin work especially as it’s so assured and impressive a piece. One has to remember that these composers were writing many years before the Italian virtuoso school took hold; if one thinks of Tartini here or Sammartini one is very much a-historical, though the powerful rhetoric that such as Schnittelbach evokes is certainly a strong indicator of native German solo violin strength in the two generations before the birth of J.S. Bach.

A number of new Naxos discs seem to be derived from German radio studios of late. This one was recorded – for broadcast? – in 2002. It’s excellently engineered and played, as I’ve suggested, with flair, imagination and no little virtuosity by the Ensemble Echo du Danube.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

This recording showcases three new evocative works by GRAMMY Award-winning American composer Michael Daugherty, exploring the triumphs and tragedies of flight. Blue Electra is a dramatic violin concerto inspired by the sensational life and mysterious disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart in 1937. Last Dance at the Surf is a one-movement dance symphony for orchestra that reflects upon rock 'n roll legend Buddy Holly's final performance in 1959 at the Surf Ballroom in Iowa and his tragic death in a plane crash just hours after his show. To the New World for orchestra celebrates the triumphant Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969 and Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk. Under the baton of GRAMMY Award-winning conductor David Alan Miller, the Albany Symphony is joined by GRAMMY Award-winning violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, who performs Blue Electra with electrifying musicality and emotion.

Grammy Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty explores the relationships between machines, humanity and nature in three unique concertos. ‘Dreamachine’ for solo percussion and orchestra is a colorful tribute to the imagination of inventors who dreamed of new machines, both real and surreal. The flute concerto ‘Trail of Tears’ dramatizes the tragic governmental forced relocation of Native Americans in 1838 and meditates on how the human spirit discovers ways to deal with adversity. ‘Reflections on the Mississippi’ for tuba and orchestra is a musical voyage down the legendary Mississippi River from Iowa to Louisiana. The Albany Symphony, conducted by David Alan Miller, delivers mesmerizing performances by three outstanding women soloists: Grammy Award-winning percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, flutist extraordinaire Amy Porter, and Carol Jantsch, the remarkable principal tubist of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

REVIEW:

Not typically known as a composer of virtuoso music hitherto, Michael Daugherty here writes splendid parts for all three soloists in these concertos, but percussionist Evelyn Glennie’s in Dreamachine is simply breathtaking. And yet, there’s more to this album than Glennie. Daugherty has been expanding his characteristic “Stravinsky plus pop culture” musical language, and although all the music here is typically programmatic, you might not guess that he was the composer. The opening flute concerto, Trail of Tears, applies cinematic techniques to that tragic event with unexpected and convincing results, all the while merging those with virtuoso flute writing. And the evocative tuba concerto, "Reflections on the Mississippi" is a much-needed expansion of the concerto literature for that instrument. With fine engineering from a pair of spaces in the Troy, New York area backing capable performances from the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller, this is an unusually strong Daugherty release.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

The latest batch of colorfully orchestrated, imaginatively conceived orchestral works by this GRAMMY Award winning composer are concertante pieces from 2010: Trail of Tears, which is a meditation on the brutal 1838 relocation of Native Americans and the flute a fittingly haunting commentator; 2013's Reflections which goes down the famous river in four movements (“Mist”, “Fury”, “Prayer” and “Steamboat”) and the big, 34-minute Dreamachine of 2014, the most stylistically heterogenous work here from the eerie and impressionistic “Electric Eel” movement which sounds like the aquarium movement from Carnival of the Animals on acid or peyote to the rock-band drum solo in the “Vulcan’s Forge” finale.

-- Records International

Michael Daugherty manages to have his musical cake and eat it too. His music's eclectic "pop" elements rub shoulders with thoroughly modern compositional techniques. Time Machine, for example, requires three conductors, but its various textural layers and rhythmic complexities never sound confused. Indeed, its ticking woodblocks sound very much like Daugherty--something similar occurs at the start of Ghost Ranch, inspired by paintings by the always marvelous Georgia O'Keefe. Both this latter work and Sunset Strip are triptychs in the grand tradition of Ives (Three Places in New England) and Debussy (La mer).

Route 66, by contrast, is a seven-minute cross-country travelogue, and one of Daugherty's best-known works (after the expansive Metropolis Symphony). Marin Alsop has established herself as a champion of Daugherty's music, and performs all of it with obvious commitment. The Bournemouth orchestra, particularly its brass section (horns and trumpets), makes the most of the numerous solo opportunities that Daugherty offers the players. Naxos' engineers do an excellent job capturing the music's wide range of colors and, in Time Machine, its spacial elements. No reservations whatever--this is just excellent.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

In ‘This Land Sings,’ Grammy Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty has created an original musical tribute to the singer-songwriter and political activist Woody Guthrie (1912-1967). Traveling the backroads of America from coast to coast with a guitar and harmonica, Woody Guthrie performed folk songs of love, wandering and social justice during the Great Depression and the Second World War. Daugherty has composed his own original songs and instrumental interludes that give haunting expression, ironic wit and contemporary relevance to political, social and environmental themes from Guthrie’s era. Under the baton of Grammy Award-winning conductor David Alan Miller, the Albany Symphony’s new music ensemble Dogs of Desire, joined by soprano Annika Socolofsky and baritone John Daugherty, give a poignant and rousing performance.

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REVIEWS:

For the most part, Daugherty doesn’t set Guthrie’s tunes at all, although This Land Is Your Land turns up in a couple of numbers. Instead, he writes words of his own and draws on texts from elsewhere in the progressive strain of thought, dating back to Mark Twain, that animated Guthrie’s production. It all adds up to something quite unlike anything anybody else has done before. Listeners are going to have their own reactions, but this is original stuff, ideally and flexibly performed.

– AllMusic Guide (James Manheim)

Michael Daugherty traveled around the dust bowl of the United States before commencing the work, savoring the backdrop to Guthrie’s life as a writer and performer. It has resulted in an overture and sixteen vocal and instrumental tracks, the words for the songs written mostly by Daugherty. They are funny; they question life and our existence; suffering and love, all expressed in a mix of classical, folk, and jazzy rhythms. It is certainly a different experience that takes the composer down a new road, particularly so in the early part of the score. The excellent punchy sound is ideal for the work. Do listen to it.

– David''s Review Corner (David Denton)

Félicien David was the pivotal figure in French opera that ignited the obsession for setting works in the exotic East. Almost all the country's leading composers in the late 19th century followed his lead, including Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Gounod and Massenet. Premièred in 1862 and recorded here for the first time, David's magical opera Lalla Roukh uses evocative orchestration to support the fairy-tale plot of an Indian princess and her journey in search of love. The work contains some memorable melodies, the most famous of which, Charmant oiseau, has been a favorite of the world’s greatest sopranos.

"The best of the music has great charm and is less self-consciously exotic than the orientalia of, say, Bizet or Massenet. Noureddin's serenades re ravishingly sung by Emiliano Gonzalez Toro. Marianne Fiset is supremely elegant in the title role." -- Tim Ashley, The Guardian [4/10/14]
“All the principals have firm, clear voices...Marianne Fiest as the heroine has a bright, perfectly placed soprano, attacking even the most exposed notes with precision.” -- Gramophone [6/2014]