"These two symphonies - the fourth premiered in 1942 in Cleveland, the ninth in 1969 in Philadelphia - are full of arresting moments, both emotionally and in terms of orchestral effects. . . These pieces are layered with dark mysteries that make you want to hear them again and again. Also, the recording quality drawn from Seattle's Benaroya Hall is outstanding." - David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, May 29th, 2005

"...Though separated by decades, the two war symphonies are exceptional -- exemplary showcases of "The American Sound" in symphonic music (i.e. athletic, modal, spacious, dramatic, starkly songful). They are soundscapes full of mass sonority, vigor and seriousness. The performances and recordings are brand new and superb." - John Simon, Buffalo News, Sunday, May 22nd, 2005


Click Here for the complete Naxos American Classic Series

During his time William Schuman (1910?1992) was a notable part of American musical life, as a teacher, administrator, and composer. His legacy of musical compositions is significant and distinctive, and this release couples two striking examples of his art.


Symphony No. 7, premiered by Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony in 1960, is in four movements played continuously, beginning with a pregnant, sinewy, and dark, slow movement that is succeeded by a brief Scherzo that is typically pugnacious and characteristically scored, not least in the percussion. The slow mood returns for a radiant Cantabile intensamente that grows in emotion, and the symphony concludes with a propulsive finale that begins skittishly (reminding us of Copland and developing an exuberance that suggests Leonard Bernstein) and ends in thrilling clamor. Whether this lively movement is quite the expected corollary to what has gone before is a moot point, although there is no doubting the sheer quality of the music, and the uplift of the final measures.


Symphony No. 10, ?American Muse,? was first heard in Washington, DC, in 1976, Antal Dorati conducting the National Symphony Orchestra. Leonard Slatkin and the Chicago Symphony then took it up, and Slatkin recorded American Muse , dedicated ?to the country?s creative artists, past, present and future,? and other works of Schuman, for RCA with the Saint Louis Symphony in either 1991 or 1992 (RCA?s booklet doesn?t specify what was recorded when). It?s a great piece, the last of Schuman?s 10 symphonies (the first two were withdrawn by the composer), a vindication of writing real symphonic music, and begins with a sustained, brass dominated Con fuoco that is a virtuoso display of considerable import; a tidal wave of communication. The lengthy Larghissimo that follows is hauntingly beautiful, very personal, even private, but it steals to the listener?s heart, and the finale, having begun in exploratory fashion, is an optimistic summation.


Both Slatkin and Gerard Schwarz are deeply sympathetic conductors of Schuman?s music, but I imagine Slatkin?s version of ?American Muse? is now deleted. Schwarz?s leading of both symphonies is excellent; so, too, the sound quality; and the music is superb. With Schuman 4 and 9 already released from Seattle, one hopes the other four symphonies will follow. Very important.


FANFARE: Colin Anderson

The Violin Concerto is one of Schuman's most powerful works. Emotionally packed, it could almost be considered a symphony for violin and orchestra. Rather than "accompanying" the soloist in the classic tradition, the orchestra becomes a participant in the high drama. The work is indeed extremely theatrical, evoking powerful emotions in a highly charged romantic atmosphere. Schuman was a poet at heart. His earliest interests actually included the writing of poetry. The concerto has some of the most poetic music ever written by Schuman. The work underwent several transformations after each of the first performances. Schuman seemed unsatisfied with the form, eventually settling for the final version of two very large movements instead of the original three. The final version of the work was performed by Roman Totenberg at the Aspen Festival in Colorado in 1959. - Jose Serebrier

This selection was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Awards for "Best Orchestral Performance" and "Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with Orchestra)."

If you're encountering the late American, New York born composer Elie Siegmeister for the first time, skip the first five tracks for now. Cue up Track Six to his gritty, uncompromising 1964 Second Sonata. The one movement work commences with stabbing, isolated pitches. These work their way into petulant clusters and stark, flickering triads. Leaping rhythmic patterns forge a grim, motoric path of no return, on which teasing jazz flourishes and starburst, two-handed arpeggios provide breezy relief. Siegmeister's predilection for granitic sonorities and bleak lyricism informs both his early 1932 Theme & Variations and his notey, rigorous Third Sonata from 1979. Five movements from the 1985 suite "These Shores" depict a quintet of American writers, whose identities are difficult to decipher without a score card. Yet this composer could write simple, accessible music too. Turn now to the opening "Sunday in Brooklyn" suite, a five movement work laced with wistful tunes and gentle, wrong-note Gershwinisms. This is music that deserves to be played much more than it is. One regrets that the composer, who died in 1991, didn't live to hear pianist Kenneth Boulton's dynamically charged, fiercely committed, and brilliantly virtuosic performances. He would have been delighted.--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington DC, Roberto Sierra's Missa Latina "is remarkably organic in its expression: if it is music that sets out to be liked—perhaps loved—it is also a unified and, one suspects, deeply felt utterance of the heart...the Missa Latina will bring pleasure to a great many listeners. (Indeed, the ‘Sanctus’ could almost be turned into a pop song.)...I can't imagine anybody who starts listening to the Missa Latina wanting to turn it off before it is over."

- The Washington Post

Includes work(s) by John Philip Sousa. Ensemble: Razumovsky Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Keith Brion.

Just for fun, try playing this CD as a quiz for a musically knowledgeable friend. You can give one hint: the composer is well known. As the suite from the operetta The Bride Elect proceeds, you'll probably get guesses like Johann Strauss (during the opening waltz), Offenbach, or Victor Herbert. But when the concluding number, a march, arrives, the composer will be obvious. Sousa's operettas, if one judges from these orchestral selections, aren't highly original or even outstandingly tuneful. But they are good light entertainment, especially as played by this crack group of Slovak players under the direction of Sousa expert Keith Brion. Naxos's recording is as crisp and clear as the orchestral playing.

Sousa, J.P.: Music for Wind Band, Vol. 3

Includes work(s) by John Philip Sousa. Ensemble: Royal Artillery Band. Conductor: Keith Brion.

Includes work(s) by John Philip Sousa. Ensemble: Royal Artillery Band. Conductor: Keith Brion.

SOUSA Music for Wind Band, Vol. 7 • Keith Brion, cond; Martin Hinton (cnt); 1 Royal Artillery Band • NAXOS 8.559247 (57: 26)


America First. The Presidential Polonaise. The Rifle Regiment. Congress Hall. El capitan. Intaglio Waltzes. Golden Jubilee. The Bride Elect. Sounds from the Revivals. 1 The Charlatan. Sheridan’s Ride. The Black Horse Troop. The Naval Reserve


Keith Brion, one of the foremost authorities on the music of Sousa, has been building an extensive library of Sousa’s music for Naxos since 1998, beginning with the first release (“On Stage,” Fanfare 22:1), which first appeared on marco polo in 1997. This is planned to be the most comprehensive collection of Sousa assembled, currently consisting of these seven volumes of wind band music, in addition to an earlier three volumes of Sousa for orchestra. In terms of wind music alone, Brion has so far released 86 works: marches, suites, waltzes, and novelty numbers. The current largest collection is by the Detroit Concert Band, which recorded all 116 published marches on five CDs (Walking Frog 300). The U.S. Marine Band’s set of four CDs, available as “A Box of Sousa” on Altissimo 5571, has 56 works. In terms of performances, the Marine Band is probably my favorite, with the Naxos set a very close second. Both compare favorably with the best single-disc releases, including Junkin with the Dallas Wind Symphony (Reference Recordings 94), Fennell with the Eastman Wind Ensemble (Mercury 434300), Foley with the American Main Street Band (EMI 54130), and Keith Brion with his own New Sousa Band (Delos 102 or Walking Frog 217), which includes seven restorations of recordings conducted by Sousa himself. The relative completeness of the Detroit release recommends it, but the performances often lapse into the routine. Besides, the Naxos set will eventually include 20 additional marches and dozens of concert works.


This seventh volume is as good a place to start as any, as it continues the series pattern of presenting a satisfying mix of the familiar ( El capitan and The Black Horse Troop ) and the unfamiliar ( Congress Hall and The Naval Reserve ), of marches derived from Sousa’s stage works ( El capitan , again, The Bride Elect and The Charlatan ), of Strauss-inspired waltzes ( Intaglio Waltzes ), of historical scenarios à la Wellington’s Victory , complete with battle sounds, racing horse hooves, and cheering ( Sheridan’s Ride ), and novelty numbers like Sounds from the Revivals , an arrangement of late-19th-century hymns which may have been written for Offenbach’s orchestra when they appeared at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.


James Camner has reviewed three of the earlier releases in the series for Fanfare : Vol. 2, 25:5, Vol. 3, 27:3, and Vol. 4, 28:1. In each he has pointed out the essential rightness of Brion’s performances. I concur. They are not so fast as to make them overbearing or cheaply exciting, but rather taken at a comfortable march tempo that allows the music to unfold naturally. The Royal Artillery Band, formed before the American colonies declared independence, plays with style and verve. Those who have learned their Sousa with (or in) larger concert bands may initially be surprised by the somewhat smaller sound of this ensemble, but in fact, this is the instrumentation that Sousa used in his own touring band. Sousa-lovers will want the whole series. The uncertain risk little, at Naxos’s bargain prices, by diving in here.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

One of the first truly American-born and -bred composers, Leo Sowerby wrote organ music that came straight from the heartland. From his early studies in Grand Rapids, Michigan to his successful career in Chicago, Sowerby revitalized organ music with a body of work rivaling Bach in terms of both quantity and quality.
Sowerby was fascinated by traditional forms, and his 'Classic Concerto' explores many of these structures. Within its three brief movements, it gives an excellent introduction to Sowerby's playful sense of harmony. 'Medieval Poem' and 'Pageant,' both written earlier, also delve into traditional themes.
'Festival Musick' is an audience favorite, bright and playful. Its sense of humor is evident to occasional listeners as well as those more intimately versed in organ music. Composed during a single week in summer, it is one of Sowerby's last compositions.
Both organists involved with this album have the remarkable technical skill and performing panache to bring Sowerby to life. The rich sound of the organ at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City and accompaniment of the Fairfield Orchestra have been captured masterfully. WORKS FOR ORGAN AND ORCHESTRA is a well-performed and expertly engineered recording.

The two works on this disc date from the early to mid 1920s and very much belong to the "new objectivity" of composers such as Weill and early Hindemith. Indeed, when listening to the Cello Concerto, the latter's Kammermusik series comes readily to mind. The Dance Suite, inventively scored for flute, clarinet, violins, viola, double bass, and percussion, is quite a substantial piece as well, lasting nearly half an hour and featuring a typically manic, highly stylized take on theoretically popular music. Both works are extremely acerbic harmonically, often verging on atonality, but at the same time quite recognizably melodic and often shot through with a curiously haunting, bittersweet lyricism.


In short, these works are very much redolent of their time and place, and if the period or the idiom interests you, then so will these very polished and well recorded performances. There's really nothing more that needs to be said: the players are uniformly fine, with cellist Christian Poltéra making the concerto sound as close to effortless as it probably ever can. The music may be gnarly, but it's also highly virtuosic and often fun (particularly in the Dance Suite), and this latter quality comes through quite effectively. In sum, this is a fine disc, but one for specialized tastes.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Joan Tower's chamber music has much the same emotional intensity and gestural ferocity as her orchestral works. Her primarily angular harmonic language, with its predominantly dissonant cast, evokes a sense of agitation bordering on rage--something most apparent in Wild Purple for solo viola (played with conviction and arresting virtuosity by Paul Neubauer). Like many Tower works, In Memory (in a stunning rendition by the Tokyo String Quartet) begins quietly--the violin's first notes are almost imperceptible--then builds to a gripping climax. The music's emotions are particularly raw and acute, as the composer was inspired by the death of a close friend, and then the 9/11 attacks that occurred shortly after.


Big Sky for piano trio (persuasively performed by Tower, along with Chee-Yun and Andre Emelianoff) has somewhat softer contours. It begins and ends in a subdued, melancholy atmosphere, while the climactic central section jars with its abrupt syncopations fleshed out in robust, quasi-romantic piano writing.


Island Prelude is the most surprising piece in this collection, as it features passages of genuine consonance and even lyricism, as well as some characterful writing for solo oboe (featuring the expert Richard Woodhams with the Tokyo String Quartet). Of course, all of this is woven into Tower's free-flowing, volatile musical style, which quite often catches you off-guard--the very thing that makes her music compelling.


No Longer Very Clear is a set of four piano pieces, the titles of which are lines taken from the John Ashbery poem of the same name. This very intimate encounter with Tower's art reveals a composer of imagination and ingenuity, and one who possesses a profound emotional sensitivity. The piano writing is brilliant and ranges from Scriabinesque passion to the mystery and exotic beauty found in Messiaen. Ursula Oppens (in the first two pieces) and Melvin Chen (in the remainder) both offer powerfully evocative performances. The recordings are uniformly excellent in both the chamber and solo settings. This release marks an important document of the composer, and a fine addition to Naxos' American Classics series. [9/16/2005]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by Naoko Akutagawa. Ensemble: Group for Contemporary Music. Conductor: Harvey Sollberger.

Gershwin began work on An American in Paris in the spring of 1928 and it's premi�re by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Walter Damrosch took place later that year on 13 th December in Carnegie Hall (three years earlier in the same venue Damrosch had conducted the first performance of Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F). In this hugely popular one-movement symphonic poem, whose colorful orchestration includes four saxophones and several taxi horns, the composer intended 'to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere'. The melancholic blues theme announced by the solo trumpet, suggesting a sudden bout of homesickness on the part of the protagonist, is one of the finest Gershwin wrote. Following the premi�re in Boston's Symphony Hall of his Second Rhapsody, conducted by Serge Koussevitsky on 29 th January 1932, Gershwin and several friends took a two-week holiday in Havana. The composer, fascinated by the small Cuban dance orchestras with their novel rhythms and unusual percussion instruments such as guiros, maracas, claves and bongos, was inspired to write the Cuban Overture. He orchestrated the work between 1 st and 9 th August 1932, completing it just a week before the first All-Gershwin Concert at the Lewisohn Stadium in New York, an open-air concert attended by some 18,000 people which was, according to the composer, 'the most exciting night I have ever had'. Cast in Gershwin's characteristic fast-slow-fast form, he wrote that he had 'endeavored to combine the Cuban rhythms with my original thematic material. The result is a symphonic overture which embodies the essence of Cuban dance'. Gershwin's magnum opus, the three-act opera Porgy and Bess, was written to a libretto by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. Based on Heyward's novel Porgy about life among the black inhabitants of Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina, the opera was started in late February 1934 and the seven hundred page full score was completed in September 1935. Heyward memorably described the idiosyncratic working methods of the Gershwin brothers, who 'would get at the piano, pound, wrangle, swear, burst into weird snatches of song, and eventually emerge with a polished lyric'. It numbers amongst it's classic songs 'Summertime', 'I Loves You, Porgy' and 'It Ain't Necessarily So'. The orchestral suite heard on this recording, the Symphonic Picture from Porgy and Bess arranged by Robert Russell Bennett, has become the standard version since it's premi�re in 1943, this despite the fact that Gershwin made his own arrangement in 1936. Evidently long forgotten about by the time Bennett made his arrangement, Gershwin's suite was retitled Catfish Row by Ira when it was rediscovered in 1958. The opera, a commercial and critical failure at the time, is now recognized as one of the greatest achievements of twentieth-century American music.

Anger produces menacing sounds. But the voice of tenderness is softer,' wrote French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and much the same could be said of the diverse music on this second volume of American percussion music. It ranges from Elliott Carter'

Scored for as few as three marimbas or as many as a hundred percussion instruments plus celesta, harp and piano, these five striking works by contemporary American composers abound in fascinating rhythms, ingenious combinations and juxtapositions.

JoAnn Falletta conducts the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic in works by four extraordinary mid-20th-century American composers who helped shape the country’s musical destiny: Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Paul Creston and Ulysses Kay. Includes two world premiere recordings – Paul Creston's Saxophone Concerto and Ulysses Kay’s poignant and elegiac Pietà.

American Percussion Works is a rare collection of seldom heard works each with specific rules or themes as a basis for the compositions. In John Cage’s First Construction the principle is based on the figure 16. Alberto Ginastera’s work Cantata para America Magica, uses pre-Columbian texts based on the conditions of human life, with war, natural phenomena, daybreak, night and love. Lou Harrison mixes non-European forms which ‘follow the pattern of having a single melodic part accompanied (or enhanced) by rhythmic percussion’ in his Koncherto. Varese’s Ionisation also enters a new land being his first solely percussive work where ‘he finds a new grammar for the language of music.’

Excellent program serves as recording debut of a new wind band.

The excellent Wind Band Classics series from Naxos continues here with the recording debut of the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, under the baton of Eugene Corporon, best known for his work at the University of North Texas. This recording could have been titled “American Optimist” or something similar, as the excellent program is dominated by cheery major-key music, balancing shorter and longer works in an excellent flow. Indeed, the selection and pacing of repertoire is one of the highlights of the disc.

Among the older pieces, the Hanson is the least likely to be familiar to band aficionados, and the band’s performance of this work is possibly the finest on the disc. It’s thoroughly convincing, and rewards repeated listens.

Donald Hunsberger’s arrangement of the Gershwin is excellent, and the piece is a natural for winds. There weren’t many places where I really missed the strings, though the arrangement does highlight some aspects of the score which tend to get buried in other recordings, lending the performance a unique sound. Overall, the interpretation is slower and more leisurely than other performances I’m familiar with. In the light of so many other excellent available recordings, I can’t see myself returning to this performance too often – it’s more of a curiosity than anything else, though not without merit.

Steven Bryant’s “Radiant Joy” struck me as the most successful of the newer repertoire; an accessible piece in the post-John Adams mold which somehow manages to feature the hi-hat cymbals without sounding inane. The appeal of the piece is primarily rhythmic, as it owes a clear debt to the complex syncopations of funk or jazz fusion. Catchy melodic ideas and extensive use of some less-common colors (piano, vibraphone, and soprano and baritone saxophones) add to the interest as well.

There are points where I wish the recorded sound was just a bit closer. Some of the vigor of the playing sometimes gets lost, as if the band is coming from a bit too far of a distance, especially on the Bennett. However it’s a subtle complaint, and the overall balance is excellent, including on the Gershwin.

The occasional discrepancies in intonation or ensemble are so minimal that only the most critical ear would know from the aural evidence that this is an all-volunteer ensemble. Their accomplishment is completely stunning when you keep that in mind. I look forward to hearing more from this group, which had only been together for a year when this recording was made.

Benn Martin, MusicWeb International

The unique qualities of the American trumpet tradition are celebrated in this wide-ranging disc. From the drama of Leo Eylar's dazzling Dance Suite to the wit of William McKinley's Miniature Portraits, virtuosity and brilliance are assured. The two songs from Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd, orchestrated by McKinley with the composer's consent, convey a quality of ardent determination. Jeffrey Silberschlag is the dedicatee of a number of these works and he carries on the illustrious lineage of American trumpeters. He is partnered by Gerard Schwarz, himself one of the great trumpeters of his generation, before turning to conducting.

Fikret Amirov is one of Azerbaijan’s best-known 20th-century composers in the classical tradition, and the inventor of the ‘symphonic mugam’ based on traditional folk melodies (as can be heard on Naxos 8.572170). Symphony ‘To the Memory of Nizami’ reflects the character of the celebrated and influential Muslim poet and philosopher Nizami, who was born in the ancient city of Ganga in Azerbaijan. Amirov’s skill in evoking fantastic worlds is heard in a suite derived from the ballet One Thousand and One Nights, in which this famous narrative about the seductive and perilous Orient resolves from a cinematic chase into a memorable love scene and final triumphant celebrations. GRAMMY Award-nominated cellist/conductor Dmitry Yablonsky has made numerous highly successful recordings for Naxos, and his connection with Azerbaijani music reinforced with releases such as Piano Concertos (8.572666) that are ‘Romantic treasures that reward repeated listening’. (MusicWeb International)

A good introduction to Azeri music with riotous orchestral colours, wit and panache.

Fikret Amirov will likely inspire comparisons to Aram Khachaturian, as a result of his penchant for exotic folk-tunes and spectacular orchestration. But the comparisons will also likely be thanks to geographical convenience: both composers hailed from the Caucasus (Amirov from Azerbaijan, Khachaturian from Georgia) and both drew their inspiration from the musical traditions of their homelands. While it is true that anybody who likes Khachaturian, or Ippolitov-Ivanov, or indeed Rimsky-Korsakov or Borodin, will love this music too, Amirov has a distinctive voice and to describe his work via comparisons is to shortchange it.

This CD compiles four of Amirov’s orchestral fantasies, entitled symphonic mugams. A mugam is, according to the booklet notes by Anastasia Belina, “a highly improvisatory … large rhapsodic musical form” alternating between song and dance episodes, popular in Azeri musical tradition. Amirov’s father was a mugam singer and creator of folk songs, and the younger composer, in adapting the mugam for symphony orchestra, seems to have taken the adjectives “large” and “rhapsodic” to heart. Shur and Kyurdi Ovshari, especially, are lengthy works which leap from one contrasting idea to another for quite some time before ending rather arbitrarily.

So I am afraid this is not music for those who like their works carefully structured, their tunes developed, or their transitions to lead with rigorous correctness from an idea to its logical counterpart. On the other hand, Amirov’s music is hugely attractive at the surface level, because many of the tunes are great, the dances are all energetic and brightly scored, and the parade of exotic sounds and colours never ceases.

Shur opens with an ominous drumbeat and extended dialogue between the bass clarinet and violas; over its course we encounter a good deal of sensuous music in the tradition of Scheherazade and Gayaneh’s Adagio, a tambourine-led dance episode, influences of Arabic music on the sleek string lines, solo episodes for flute and oboe, and a quiet ending. Kyurdi Ovshari opens with a sultry tease of a tune on the clarinet, but this melody only barely makes it to the fifth minute before being replaced by a full-string-section tune that actually reminds me of Gershwin and then a dialogue between the orchestra’s sections that is rather stop-and-go until a very surprising cadenza at 8:30 - I won’t betray the identity of the solo instrument. The last six minutes of Kyurdi Ovshari might be the most exciting music on the whole CD.

Gyulistan Bayati Shiraz begins quite ominously, with a moment in the spotlight for the double basses and a considerably more ‘modern’ tonal idiom. There are fewer tunes in this work, then, and more concessions to the music of Amirov’s western contemporaries, although his style is still very accessible. The surprise soloist from Kyurdi Ovshari returns to play a major role.

Azerbaijan Capriccio, the short final piece, bears a startling resemblance to many subsequent war movie soundtracks. The brash opening, then, makes me grin, as do subsequent allusions to Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto. There’s a lovely atmosphere in the episode after 2:40, and some really rip-roaring brass writing throughout. This shortest of the mugams quite concisely captures all the qualities that make Amirov’s music so much fun.

Several instruments of the orchestra benefit from more attention than usual due to their close connections with Azeri folk instruments: the violas, for instance, are called on to do their best to imitate the stringed kamancheh, and the flutes sometimes mimic the deeper, more soulful sound of the ney. The Russian Philharmonic Orchestra responds with enthusiastic, exciting performances, led by maestro Dmitry Yablonsky, who perhaps cannot save the first half of Kyurdi Ovshari from being a bit repetitive but who leads all the music with commitment and zest.

Sound quality is superb; in fact, this is one of the most clearly-engineered Naxos recordings I have heard. The parts of the orchestra are balanced very well, all of the dozens of solos sound quite natural without being artificially ‘enhanced,’ and the recording is close enough to make climaxes very exciting indeed. One can even hear the contrabassoon buzzing away like an intimidating insect in Kyurdi Ovshari. Several of Amirov’s symphonic mugams were previously recorded by Leopold Stokowski on the Everest label in the 1950s, and I have not heard those performances, unfortunately, but cannot imagine them being superior enough in playing or sound to justify the extra labour of trying to locate them.

This compact disc is well worth your time for several reasons: as an introduction to the lavish music of Fikret Amirov and as a free holiday through the sights and sounds of exotic Azerbaijan, and for a hilarious booklet photograph of conductor Dmitry Yablonsky. The music, the performances, and, yes, even the artist photo are each worth the price of admission, which means that for those interested in this type of music I can safely give this disc my strongest recommendation.

For those hungry for more Amirov, Naxos has recorded an elegiac symphony for string orchestra on a disc called “Caucasian Impressions,” and several works for flute and piano have appeared on BIS. But we are just scratching the surface. This album’s notes inform me that Amirov composed “operas, ballets, symphonies, symphonic poems, symphonic mugams, suites, piano concertos, sonatas, musical comedies … incidental stage music, and film music.” Looking online, I see there is a “double concerto” for violin, piano, and orchestra, a ballet based on the Arabian Nights, an “Azerbaijan” Orchestral Suite, and a handful of works for saxophone and orchestra. Naxos, please let this CD be only the beginning!

-- Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

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Let's face it, Shur sounds suspiciously like the third movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, and if the opening of the Azerbaijan Capriccio isn't Lohengrin orientalized (Act 3 prelude), then I don't know what is. But who cares? The music is delightful, colorful, tuneful, and unabashed fun. And Fikret Amirov's style, even in these works, did evolve, sort of. The third of his Symphonic Mugams--Gyulistan Bayati Shiraz--features interesting writing for piano and saxophone, and has a more concise form and less obviously 19th-century harmonic patina. Amirov also wrote symphonies, and it would be interesting to hear them.

The performances here are pretty much the best available. Leopold Stokowski introduced most of us to Amirov with his Everest recording of Kyurdi Ovshari, a couple of minutes quicker than this one. Of the two other recordings of this work (and some of the others), the one on Olympia is rather droopy, while Antonio de Almeida on ASV is aptly lively, but his Moscow Symphony isn't as good an ensemble as the Russian Philharmonic. Dmitry Yablonsky (a scary picture of whom appears in the CD booklet), seems to get the tempos just right. He's exciting in the quick bits and lusciously romantic in the big tunes. The engineering is also very good. Very enjoyable indeed.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The sixteenth-century Leipzig organist Elias Nicolaus Ammerbach is remembered above all for his Tabulaturbuch, a collection of keyboard arrangements of songs, dances and other works.

Mayr's opera buffa Amore non soffre opposizioni was first performed in Venice in 1810 and owes something to the increasingly popular genre of the "sentimental drama". Conforming to Neapolitan practice in having no recitatives, it reflects precisely those qualities that aroused such enthusiasm for his music in Mayr's contemporaries: beautiful, expressive melodies, a natural vocal style, stimulating harmonies, and sophisticated instrumentation. The restoration of Mayr's music in modern performance has been largely due to the critically acclaimed conductor on this recording, Franz Hauk.

David Amram's career as a versatile composer, conductor and multi-instrumentalist has spanned more than 70 years. Recorded here in it's world premiere, Voyages for Solo Violin in three movements evokes ancient Egypt, Native American and African roots music and, in the words of the composer, "the tradition of the fiddler as a keeper of the flame." Ranging from prayer-like melodies to blues and polyrhythms, the Piano Sonata is one of the most jazz-influenced of any 20th-century work in this genre, while the Violin Sonata brings classical and jazz idioms together in music that inspired a collaboration with the writer Jack Kerouac.

American Salute: Spirit of the Nation is a tasteful collection of orchestral pieces devoted to the history and vitality of the United States. Performed by a series of orchestras, highlights include Aaron Copland's sweeping "Hoe Down," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and Ferde Grof�'s "Grand Canyon Suite 'Sunrise'," during which the anticipation of the sun hitting the lip of the canyon is palpable. The introspective moments of "Variations on 'America'" and Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" are also a nice touch, as they offset the collection's more bombastic moments. Basic versions of the "Star Spangled Banner" and "Stars and Stripes Forever" round out the set.

Introduction to Early Music (An)

This recording traverses Canada America and the British isles in music that has helped define the culture of those nations. England is represented by two of its most celebrated composers, Holst and Vaughan Williams, and the iconic Scottish ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is traditionally sung to greet each New Year. Celebrated Canadian songs include Jimmy Rankin’s Juno Award-winning ‘Fare the well love.’ Eric Whitacre’s distinctive harmonic clusters can be heard in ‘Go lovely rose,’ and Gordon Lightfoot counts Bob Dylan among his many fans, Dylan once declaring that when he heard a song such as ‘Pussywillows, cat-tails’ he wished “it would last forever.” The Elora Singers, formerly known as the Elora Festival Singers, founded in 1980 by artistic director Noel Edison, is an all-professional Grammy and twice Juno-nominated chamber choir known for its rich, warm sound and clarity of texture. They are also renowned for their commitment to Canadian repertoire and for their collaborations with other artists from across Canada and around the world.