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JIDDISCHE SONGS
Thorofon May 1991
CD
$18.99

COMIC SONGS: 1929-39

Frémeaux

$32.99 Oct 01, 2003

2-CD set contains 38 comic songs by Mary Buldoc, whose works are now studied in universities. Indeed, historians prefer her version of everyday life to that described in the press of the period. However, Mary was simply describing what she saw around her, without premise and unaffected by her reputation.

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COMIC SONGS: 1929-39
Frémeaux Oct 2003
CD
$32.99

Originals - Musical Comedy 1909-1935

SONY

$14.86 Mar 27, 2012

First Time on CD! The early history of Broadway performance from stars Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Beatrice Lillie, Eddie Cantor, and more (including Cole Porter singing "You're the Top") is preserved on this exclusive CD reissue.

Originals – Musical Comedy 1909-1935 is the perfect introduction to a lost world: the Broadway musical just as it was changing from a vaudeville-style entertainment to an art form. This unique collection from 1968 includes legendary names and recordings from the era: Blanche Ring’s “Rings on My Fingers,” Cole Porter himself singing “You’re the Top” and Fanny Brice in “Second Hand Rose,” along with Helen Morgan, Libby Holman, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Beatrice Lillie and the comedy team of Gallagher and Shean in the number that stopped The Ziegfeld Follies, “Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean.” Collectors will want to own this long-unavailable set and for younger listeners, it will be a fascinating piece of cultural archeology.

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Originals - Musical Comedy 1909-1935
SONY Mar 2012
CD
$14.86

Hush! / Papagena

SOMM Recordings

$20.99 Mar 06, 2020

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce Hush!, the second release by the “extraordinary voices” (BBC Radio 3) of female quintet Papagena following their internationally acclaimed, Amazon classical chart-topping debut, The Darkest Midnight. Hush! unearths a treasure trove of songs largely neglected on disc to deliver a stunning follow-up to The Darkest Midnight. Where it hymned the cold, harsh glamour of sun-starved winter, Hush! – playful, poignant, poetic and primed with the expectation of joy – celebrates the warmth and light of love. Typically for Papagena, Hush! is a centuries-spanning, genre-defying, culturally diverse recital marrying sacred and secular, ancient and modern, classical, traditional and even stadium rock. The result is an often gorgeous, always intelligent exploration of “hush” as a harbinger of consolation, of tranquil release and of mild admonition to pause, listen, feel and relish the quietly exultant glories of being alert and alive to the fleeting moment. Papagena’s beautifully blended, pristine vocal signature illuminates ecstatic heights, anguished depths and love in all its multi-hued splendour with a becoming thread of wit and humor. First recordings include The Woman’s ‘If’, Jim Clements’ knowing setting of Caitlin Moran’s wickedly arch re-imagining of Rudyard Kipling’s If from a modern female perspective, Papagena’s Suzzie Vango’s arrangement of American rock icons Guns N’Roses’ anthemic Sweet Child O’Mine and Geoffrey Weaver’s exquisite re-working of Tchaikovsky’s touching depiction of the Christ-child, Legend (The Crown of Roses). Traditional songs from English and Celtic sources are heard alongside pieces drawn from the profoundly moving religious heritage of Eastern Europe and Sephardic music. Hailed by arts site The Prickle as “a young female Hilliard Ensemble”, Papagena’s The Darkest Midnight was judged “stimulating, varied and full of interest” by MusicWeb International, adding: “What sets the album apart is the superb singing [of] an outstanding ensemble”.

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Hush! / Papagena
SOMM Recordings Mar 2020
CD
$20.99

Straus: Der Tapfere Soldat (The Chocolate Soldier) / Kohler, Kranzle, Dickie, Stein, Borst, WDR

Capriccio

$22.99 Jan 31, 2012

STRAUS Der Tapfere Soldat • Siegfried Köhler, cond; Caroline Stein ( Nadina ); Johannes Martin Kränzie ( Bumerli ); Martina Borst ( Mascha ); John Dickie ( Alexius ); Gertraud Wagner ( Aurelia ); Helmut Berger ( Popoff ); WDR RO; Händel Collegium Köln • CAPRICCIO C5089 (2 CDs: 88:06)

The irascible playwright and man of letters George Bernard Shaw seems to have had a gift for producing stories that were ripe for adaption as light musical comedy. Shaw did not live to see his Pygmalion turned by Lerner and Loewe into the megahit My Fair Lady and make superstars of Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, and Audrey Hepburn. The British pundit (and one-time opera critic) was front and center, however, as his little antiwar drama Arms and the Man was turned by Oscar Straus and his Viennese librettists into the operetta Der Tapfere Soldat (The Valiant Soldier) and became an international hit. In fact, Shaw worried about his satirical play being turned into bad musical comedy. He agreed to let the story be used only if (1) none of his dialog or character names were used, (2) the operetta were to be advertised as a parody of his work, and (3) no remuneration was to be made. Never widely popular in the pre-World War I Germanic countries where soldiers were heroes and the military a revered institution, Der Tapfere Soldat went on to become a smash hit in New York in 1909 as the more aptly titled Chocolate Soldier , and then one year later scored another triumph right under Shaw’s nose in London. The old man publicly denigrated Straus’s popular operetta but lived to regret his lack of share in its box-office success.

The story involves a likeable young soldier in the Bulgarian army who, to avoid the fierce raging battle outside, climbs up the drainpipe and into the home of a mother, daughter, and another young friend, whose menfolk are also off at the war (actually, he drops right into the daughter’s bedroom). When threatened by his own gun by daughter Nadina, the soldier, Bumerli, laughs and tells her his cartridge case is full of chocolates; he has no bullets for his weapon. In spite of his not being the type of romantic hero she has been dreaming of, Nadina falls for her little chocolate soldier, as do the two other women. They hide him when soldiers come searching and provide him civilian clothes to aid his escape. Trouble comes when Nadina’s father and fiancé return with the regiment. Bumerli also turns up, ostensibly to return the clothes, but he is in love with Nadina. Outrage and hurt feelings ensue, but Alexius, Nadina’s intended, shows a marked preference for the young friend, Mascha. The typical operetta muddle is eventually sorted out and the parents are made happy when it turns out the chocolate soldier is the son of a wealthy Swiss businessman. So much for true love.

Straus wrote many catchy melodies for the early Viennese silver-age work, the most famous of which is Nadina’s solo “Komm, komm, Held meiner Traume” (Come, Come, Hero of My Dreams). Also popular was the humorous duet between the two leads, “Ach, du kleiner Praliné-Soldat” (Ah, You Little Praline Soldier). This recording was made for WDR radio in Cologne in 1993 and features clear, pure-voiced, light soprano Caroline Stein in the lead role of Nadina. She sings very well both alone and in ensemble and is much the best singer on the recording. Baritone Johannes Martin Kränzie sings Bumerli in a pleasant voice but has a noticeable wobble when he pushes his upper range. He blends in well in the ensembles, of which there are many in this light work. The second romantic couple of tenor John Dickie and mezzo Martina Borst sing well in this style of music, as do Mom and Dad, contralto Gertraud Wagner and bass-baritone Helmut Berger.

As far as I am aware, this is the only recording of Der Tapfere Soldat in German. The Ohio Light Opera Company recorded it in English in the late ’90s on the Newport label, where it is still available. A 1958 recording of highlights in English on RCA features much the best voices led by mezzo Risë Stevens and baritone Robert Merrill. That recording is out of print but can be obtained as a facsimile CD-R from ArkivMusic. Capriccio sadly does not provide a libretto, but there is a more than adequate synopsis and some brief bios. If, like me, you want these operettas in their original language, this is the one to buy. It will provide you an hour and a half of very enjoyable, frothy light music. Recommended.

FANFARE: Bill White

-------

Oscar Straus (note the spelling of Straus – only one ‘s’ at its end) was born in Vienna on 6 March 1870 but was not related to the famous Strauss dynasty.

He began his career emulating the satirical Offenbach, with Die Lustigen Nibelungen (The Merry Nibelungs). Richard Traubner in his excellent book, Operetta, A Theatrical History, suggests that it was “too musically advanced for Viennese ears” and national-socialist pro-Wagnerians were not amused. Those who relish the idea of lampooning of The Ring might like to know that Capriccio have a one-CD Köln recording of Oscar Straus’s The Merry Nibelungs again conducted by Köhler (C5088). Noticing the great success of Lehár’s The Merry Widow, in 1905, Straus decided to capitulate to public taste and entered the comfortable dream world of sentimental Viennese operetta with his smash success - in Austria and Germany if not in America and England - of Ein Waltztraum (A Waltz Dream) of 1907.

Straus’s The Chocolate Soldier (German title: Der tapfere Soldat or Der Praliné-Soldat) followed in 1908. It was based on George Bernard Shaw's 1894 play, Arms and the Man and the libretto was by Rudolf Bernaur and Leopold Jacobson. G.B. himself was not at all keen on such an adaptation of his play which had been successful in its Viennese run and only accepted the situation provided that Straus’s operetta was promoted as an unauthorized parody of his play and that he received no royalties for it. A bad mistake - because the show was a big hit in London and New York - but not quite so in Europe because of political sensitivities surrounding the Balkans where the action of the story was set. Later, Shaw tried to recoup some of his financial losses when M-G-M approached him for the film rights for The Chocolate Soldier. Louis B. Mayer refused Shaw’s exorbitant demands and the film went ahead with a mix of Straus’s and other’s music but to a different plot based on Ferenc Molnár's play Testor . The 1941 film starred Nelson Eddy and Risë Stevens – although Jeanette MacDonald had originally been pencilled in to star with Eddy.

There’s a very good Wikipedia article on Straus’s The Chocolate Soldier that also details all the songs. Briefly the story is set in Bulgaria in 1885 during the war between Serbia and Bulgaria. Nadina, her friend Mascha and her mother are missing their menfolk away at the hostilities. Suddenly a soldier, handsome and charming bursts into her bedroom. He is Bumerli, a Swiss mercenary serving in the Serbian army. He is an ordinary soldier quite unlike her supposedly heroic fiancée Alexius. Bumerli carries chocolates in his pouch instead of ammunition! His charm captivates the ladies and as Act I closes all three are smitten. They all give him photographs of themselves inscribed with loving messages. He puts all three in his great coat and promptly forgets them. But he cannot forget Nadina. Six months later he returns for her but the three photographs are produced. Jealousy flare up between Nadina and Mascha, Bumerli is thought to be fickle and faithless and comic complications ensue. All is happily resolved at the end.

The big hit of the show is the well-known and popular waltz song, ‘Komm, komm, Held meiner Träum’ (‘Come, come hero of my dreams’). Here it is sung most beguilingly by sweet-voiced Caroline Stein as Nadina. She is singing about her Alexius in Act I, her fiancée and imagined hero, who turns out to be nothing of the kind. The lower tenor timbre of Kränzle makes Bumerli sound just that little bit too mature for Nadina. However the charm of their duet ‘Weill’s Leben suss und herzlich ist’ (‘Because life is sweet and beautiful’) cannot be diminished. Much of the music comprises ensemble writing - quartets, quintets, and sextets and soloists with choir. The Act I ensemble song with comic material for the soldiers searching for Bumerli and an interpolated stirring patriotic song lustily sung by Nadina is a highlight – so, too, is the following charming waltz-song trio for Nadina, Mascha and Aurelia They sing ‘Tiralala’ as all besotted, they dream of their Chocolate soldier. This number has some lovely orchestral felicities in the strings and woodwinds. Kränzle’s wistful Act II song ‘If one can, as one wants’ has an introduction that echoes the ‘Tiralala’. Kränzle has another charming if argumentative duet ‘Es war einmal ein Fräulein’ (‘There was once a maiden’) with Nadina before Act II’s exuberant finale closes with a ringing reprise of the big number, ‘Komm, komm, Held meiner Träum’ (‘Come, come hero of my dreams’). Conductor, Köhler consistently delivers telling sentimental and witty accompaniments to all the numbers. Mention should be made of the delicious irony of the orchestral accompaniments to the waspish numbers of Act II like the bickering between Nadina and Bumerli in ‘Pardon, pardon pardon! Ich steig ja nur auf den Balkon’ (Pardon, I rise only on the balcony)

A charming recording of a delightful operetta.

Ian Lace, MusicWeb International

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Straus: Der Tapfere Soldat (The Chocolate Soldier) / Kohler, Kranzle, Dickie, Stein, Borst, WDR
Capriccio Jan 2012
CD
$22.99

Simply Heavenly [Original Cast]

Sony Masterworks

$11.98 Oct 14, 2016

It was a great day for Broadway when the New York Fire Department discovered violations in an uptown auditorium. The building was condemned and the tenants were forced to vacate, which meant that Jess Simple and all the warm, funny and foolish characters connected with Langston Hughes' comedy with music would have to find a new home. The new home was found on Broadway - the Playhouse - and Simply Heavenly opened there on August 20, 1957. Simply Heavenly is based on "Simple Takes a Wife" and other "Simple" Stories by the celebrated poet Langston Hughes. The action is concerned with Jess Simple, an honest, easy-going man trying to raise enough money to divorce a wife he does not love in order to marry his new love, Joyce Lane; his experiences with the neighborhood characters and his unsuccessful attempts to escape a woman who is bent on leading him astray. In short, Simply Heavenly is about many aspects of Harlem - its jazz, its humor and the universal problem of paying the rent and buying a shot of gin.

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Simply Heavenly [Original Cast]
Sony Masterworks Oct 2016
CD
$11.98

Berners: Songs & Piano Music / Partridge, Vorster

Naxos

$13.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 30% May 13, 2022

Lord Berners was essentially self-taught as a composer, profiting from experiences gained while travelling in Europe, and receiving advice and encouragement from Stravinsky. Atone of wit and humor is established in his masterful settings of Heine in the Lieder Album, and his subtle touch with the French language is well represented in the Trois Chansons. The Fragments psychologiques is a piano cycle that is both virtuosic and expressive. Frommock parlor-song parodies to a poem about a dejected goldfish, Lord Berners’ keen sense of observation and ironic view on life is here in abundance.

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Berners: Songs & Piano Music / Partridge, Vorster
Naxos May 2022
CD
~~$19.99~~ $13.99

FUNKY THIDE OF SINGS

MUSIC ON CD

$15.49 Mar 19, 2021

CD reissue. "A Funky Thide of Sings" is all about the funk! Space rock drumming to be precise. The album opener "Panhandler" begins with an eerie type of ambience that reminds of hiding under a rock until this unexplainable ominous danger above clears. This song keeps a tight melody flowing and even when an extraordinary jazzy guitar solo comes in, the song remains high-octane and awesome. Keith Jarrett's "Sorcery" displays the Cobham funk sound at it's best. "Moody Modes" lives up to it's name! 'A Funky Thide Of Sings' is an album with Cobham's thunderous drumrolls and triple kick bass drums, with his signature sound. To hear them is to realize you'll always recognize, and appreciate what a great drummer sounds like.

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FUNKY THIDE OF SINGS
MUSIC ON CD Mar 2021
CD
$15.49

JAZZ PEARLS

DIGGERS FACTORY

Vinyl

$35.49 May 10, 2024

My Funny Valentine was created for "Babes in Arms", a Broadway musical of the 1930s. This song by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart is a classic, and Chet Baker's interpretations will forever be part of musical history. This album features two unique vocal and instrumental interpretations of the same song, magnified by Chet's fragile voice and gentle trumpet, as well as some great jazz standards.

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JAZZ PEARLS
DIGGERS FACTORY May 2024
Vinyl
$35.49

Schumann: Kreisleriana & Ghost Variations; Widmann: 11 Humoresken / Pilsan

Alpha

$20.99 May 26, 2023

Schumann composed Kreisleriana in April 1838, at the age of 27, exactly the same age as Aaron Pilsan today : “The youthful thing that I can identify with in Kreisleriana is its spontaneity. If I had to describe the piece, I would use the German word for crazy, ‘verrückt’, which doesn’t just mean crazy, but also to be disconnected from reality. So, crazy, imaginative and intimate… There is a huge connection between these two German composers, as Jörg Widmann was inspired by Schumann’s music a lot and even his musical language is very similar, even though their styles are obviously very different. The starting point for Widmann’s music is from feelings, from the emotions and sentiments and that is where there is a similarity, but not only there. He even quotes Robert Schumann in his tenth Humoreske, taking a bar directly from Schumann’s Geistervariationen."

REVIEW:

Pilsan expresses the inner turmoil of the Kreisleriana with a keen sense of the enigmatism that is one of the secrets of Schumann’s art. He also finds the right approach in the Geistervariationen, interiorized, cantabile and supple. The melodic tenderness is never obscured by melancholy. It is in such a clear and restrained interpretation that the loss becomes clear, for this is, after all, Schumann’s last work before he was committed to a mental hospital.

Between the two Schumann works Aaron Pilsan has inserted Jörg Widmann’s Elf Humoresken, whose title refers to Robert Schumann. He succeeds very well in showing what the composer wanted: "May the interpreter discover in each of the pieces its very own tone and make it sound, sometimes mocking, then again dry, here melancholically clouded, but always with humor and subtlety."

-- Pizzicato

[Pilsan’s] artistry has evolved considerably. You have to turn to the most esteemed recordings of Kreisleriana, by Horowitz, Pollini, and Argerich, for example, to outstrip Pilsan’s performance. He seeks more balance and moderation at times than those pianists...he’s clearly to the manner born.

Reading the informative liner notes to this new release, which also includes a brief interview with Widmann conducted by Pilsan, you pick up some obvious reference points. Schumann wrote his own set of humoresques, and he freely used the expression marking mit Humor or mit guten Humor, which a postmodern composer like Widmann doesn’t take to be as simple as it looks. He takes full advantage of an emotional spectrum extended even farther than Schumann’s.

The mood is often freely tonal and Romantic, easily accessible if you appreciate contemporary eclecticism and Widmann in particular, as I very much do. Fragmentary references to Schumann abound, and in the final piece a bar of music from Schumann’s last work, the “Ghost” Variations, is directly quoted, serving as a link to Pilsan’s performance of the whole piece. The other major work on the program, Kreisleriana, was based on the fantastical Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler created by E. T. A. Hoffman. The fact that Schumann borrows the title of one of the three Kreisler novels (the last of which is narrated by his cat) implies that the music describes Kreisler’s peculiar temperament as much as Schumann’s – in the medieval sense, temperament is rooted in the four humors.

I haven’t heard other recordings of the Widmann, but Pilsan’s account seems nearly ideal in the way he merges Schumann into the contemporary texture of the music.

-- Fanfare

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Schumann: Kreisleriana & Ghost Variations; Widmann: 11 Humoresken / Pilsan
Alpha May 2023
CD
$20.99

BEYOND OTHER STORIES

ORIGIN RECORDS

$16.60 ~~$16.61~~ Save 0% Jan 15, 2021

What comes out when Norway and Cuba team up musically: earthy bass, filigree rhythms, melancholy, charm, humor - and an almost unbelievable lightness. Badische-Zeitung (Germany). Norwegian vocalist/composer Grete Skarpeid's "Beyond Other Stories" is contemporary word painting at it's finest, with rhythmic contours beautifully enhanced by a quartet of master musicians, led by Cuban pianist Aru n Ortiz. Skarpeid draws us into the interior landscape of life with an eerily beautiful sense of freedom in her voice, mixing melancholy and joy, vulnerability and splendor. Ortiz's beautifully crafted arrangements of variety and sensuousness, are captured in every caressed phrase by Skarpeid. The music shines from the ethereal magnificence of "Singing Again," which sets to music a poem by the noted Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge, through the feelings of spiritual loss evoked in "Adam and Eve," to the existential weightlessness of "Flying High." The unlikely musical partnership of Grete and Aru n began by happenstance when Ortiz passed through Grete's remote hometown while touring Norway with Don Byron. Grete shared some of her original songs with Ortiz, who instantly fell in love with her music and encouraged her to write more, later collaborating in New York on Skarpeid's first album, "My Songs" in 2016. "Skarpeid fills us with so much joy as she reveals herself to be an artist of the first order..." - Raul da Gama.

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BEYOND OTHER STORIES
ORIGIN RECORDS Jan 2021
CD
~~$16.61~~ $16.60

GOOD YEAR / O.S.T.
SONY LEGACY Nov 2006
CD
$12.14

Horns for the Holidays / Junkin, Dallas Wind Symphony

Reference Recordings

$18.99 Sep 11, 2012

If you are a lover of Christmas music—carols, popular songs, and all manner of medleys and clever arrangements of such—and you miss this extraordinary recording by the first-rate Dallas Wind Symphony, then your holiday listening stands to be just a bit more dull, less festive, and more ordinary than it could have been. This is a terrific program, in exemplary sound, that not only celebrates the Christmas music tradition but exemplifies the best of the wind ensemble genre, with its unique sonorities and long tradition of both originality and sense of playfulness and humor on the part of composers and arrangers.

The program opens with the obligatory fanfare—suitably titled Festival Fanfare—a nifty arrangement by John Wasson commissioned by the Dallas Wind Symphony, not surprisingly a showpiece for horns, full of familiar Christmas tunes. A decent but kinda square Sleigh Ride follows, along with a straightforward arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring that beautifully exhibits the colors and rich textures of a first-rate wind band.

Among the highlights: my favorite, a celebration of the much-maligned minor mode—DWS saxophonist David Lovrien’s Minor Alterations: Christmas Through the Looking Glass, a “recasting” of favorite Christmas songs and carols (and even snippets of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker combined with Deck the Hall!) into a wonderful medley of minor-key madness (along with some melodic and rhythmic twists) that definitely calls for repeated listening. Another standout is The Christmas Song, with its fine alto sax solo by Donald Fabian, swingingly accompanied by the ensemble.

The big “classical” work is an arrangement simply called Russian Christmas Music, which apparently draws its sources from “Russian folk and Eastern Orthodox church music”. At almost 14 minutes, it’s by far the program’s most substantial entry, and it does show a wider range of technical virtuosity and different aspect of interpretive awareness than required in most of the other works, even if Alfred Reed’s arrangement begins to seem a bit long for the material after about 10 minutes. Never mind; any drift of attention is quickly recalled front and center with the concluding Christmas And Sousa Forever—the title giving away the concept. Wait until you hear how arranger Julie Giroux juxtaposes excerpts from such Christmas favorites as Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker with The Stars and Stripes Forever (and a couple of other marches)—not to mention the way she accompanies Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with that famous piccolo solo! It’s tempting to use that well-worn line, “if you buy only one Christmas CD this season, this one should be it”—but I won’t; I’ll just say that if by chance it is the only one, you won’t be disappointed.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

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Horns for the Holidays / Junkin, Dallas Wind Symphony
Reference Recordings Sep 2012
CD
$18.99

Lopes-Graça: Divertimento, Sinfonieta, & More Orchestral Works / Borralhinho, Portuguese Symphony Orchestra

Naxos

$19.99 Jun 10, 2022

Fernando Lopes-Graça was one of Portugal’s greatest composers of the 20th century, whose artistic credo was the binding together of the folk music of his native country with modern techniques to create an alternative and original national identity. With its constantly shifting tonal context the Divertimento perfectly captures Lopes-Graça’s inimitable style, which is further enriched in the concisely constructed Sinfonieta by his admiration for Haydn. The moving, even tragic Cinco Velhos Romances Portugueses are based on traditional ballads while the challenging Quatro Invenções, in the composer’s words, explore ‘essentially atonal dramatic expressionism’.

REVIEW:

Composer Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-94) has been described as sort of a Portuguese Bartók, and with good reason. His music in strongly folk-influenced, but never merely “folksy.” He managed to reflect these nationalist origins in an uncompromisingly modernist style, including atonal expressionist elements (think Ginastera), while still giving listeners more than enough to make the effort worthwhile. This is very evident in considering the program at hand–ostensibly “light” music that still has plenty of meat on its bones.

The Divertimento (1957), scored mostly for winds, is a spiky, harmonically acerbic work in seven brief movements whose humor and verve go hand in hand with a harmonic density that makes the work sound more expensive than it really is. The Sinfonietta “Homage to Haydn” evokes its nominal inspiration without ever resorting to mere imitation–except for one movement of literal quotation that’s all the more shocking (and funny) in its context. I won’t give away the joke, but it’s delicious. Cinco Velhos Romances Portugueses offers sensitive instrumental settings of traditional songs passed down through the centuries among Portuguese women. The Four Inventions for Solo Cello (1961) allegedly belong to the composers atonal expressionist style, but they are quite easy to follow, intensely lyrical, and consistently ear-catching–and I’m not usually a fan of music for solo strings.

In the first three works conductor/cellist Bruno Borralhinho gets fresh and lively playing from the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, making an excellent case for the composer and these particular works. He also plays a mean cello in the Four Inventions, and Naxos provides the necessary clean and clear engineering. This is good stuff.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

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Lopes-Graça: Divertimento, Sinfonieta, & More Orchestral Works / Borralhinho, Portuguese Symphony Orchestra
Naxos Jun 2022
CD
$19.99

English Song Series 2 - Somervell: Shropshire Lad, James Lee's Wife

Naxos

$19.99 Nov 01, 2002

Somervell's four songs on poems from William Blake's Songs of Innocence were written in 1889, dedicated to Dolly and Gwen, and simple and child-like in form and appeal, perfectly crafted examples of such work. The song cycle based on Tennyson's monodrama Maud dates from 1898. There are thirteen songs in the whole work that traces the story from the memories of the suicide of the protagonist's father, ruined by unfortunate speculation, making his son's match with Maud, daughter of his father's closest friend, and his betrayer, impossible. Three of these are included here. Maud's family return to the Hall and gradually the young man at the heart of the drama falls in love with her again. In the fifth song of Somervell's cycle, Birds in the high Hall-garden, the lovers meet, before Maud returns to the house, with the flowers she has picked. The verses that tell of the arrival of another to woo her are omitted. The seventh song, Go not, happy day, expresses the love of the couple. The first part of the poem ends with the words that provide the ninth song of Somervell's cycle, Come into the garden, Maud, words perhaps more familiar in the setting by Balfe. The singer calls Maud to the garden, as he hears the sound of music from the Hall, where he has not been invited. As she approaches, he is in ecstasy, but the song does not tell how their meeting is to be interrupted by Maud's brother, his quarrel with her lover, and her brother's death in the dreadful hollow, where the drama had started. In the remaining songs Maud's lover seeks exile abroad and goes out of his mind, while Maud, in his absence, dies. The cycle ends with the singer's resolve to meet his fate in war for his country. The song cycle derived from Robert Browning's James Lee's Wife was published in 1907 with a dedication to Marie Brema, a Liverpool-born singer of German-American parentage who, in 1894, was the first English-born singer to appear at Bayreuth, where she sang Ortrud in Lohengrin and Kundry in Parsifal. James Lee's Wife first appeared, under the title James Lee, in 1864 in Browning's Dramatis Personae and from the original nine poems Somervell takes five. The first version has an orchestral accompaniment, but the songs were later arranged for an accompaniment of piano quintet, and then simply with a piano accompaniment. As in other dramatic monologues by Browning, the woman of the title reveals her story, telling first of changing love, more dramatically in the second song, By the Fireside, as she tells of the rot and rust, run to dust, of a ship seemingly safe in port, as she and her husband had seemed. The same idea continues in the third song, In the Doorway, from which the middle two verses of the original poem are omitted. In the fifth of Browning's poems, On the Cliff, she sings of the parched vegetation on the rock and how from this may come color and life, as with the minds of men. The cycle ends with the seventh of Browning's poems, Among the Rocks, in which she proclaims her message that If you loved only what were worth your love, / Love were clear gain.

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English Song Series 2 - Somervell: Shropshire Lad, James Lee's Wife
Naxos Nov 2002
CD
$19.99

Kell néha egy kis csavargás
Hungaroton Oct 2002
CD
$21.99

I LOVE GERMAN FOLK & DRINKING / VARIOUS
KADO Nov 1995
CD
$7.00

COOKIN: RUDY VAN GELDER REMASTERS SERIES
PRESTIGE Feb 2007
CD
$12.49

Borg: 15 Songs to Poems by Gustaf Fröding - Landscape

Danacord

$18.99 Jun 23, 2014

The poems by Gustaf Fröding are well known to Swedish poetry and music lovers and many of them have been set to music before. Fröding belonged to the same generation of authors "the 1890's" that also included Nobel Prize winners Selma Lagerlöf, Verner von Heidenstam and Erik Axel Karlfeldt. Fröding was and is probably the most popular of them all. These fifteen Fröding songs cover a wide spectrum of emotions, from folksy humoristic rural stories via satirical portraits, good-natured but biting to deeply philosophical and serious personal and universal analyses. Matti Borg varies the expressivity of the music depending on the content of the texts. The very first song, for instance, Jonte Och Brunte, describes graphically the old farm-hand and the aged horse on their way home from the field at the end of the day.

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Borg: 15 Songs to Poems by Gustaf Fröding - Landscape
Danacord Jun 2014
CD
$18.99

Bogdanovic: Music Gardens of the World

Naxos

$19.99 May 08, 2026

Dušan Bogdanovic's inspiration behind this project came from writing a compilation of world music pieces for his young son, but after hearing the duo of Antigoni Goni and Eleonora Perretta perform, he greatly expanded the idea. The abundant spirit of these folk inspirations is exemplified by their variety - from 17th-century chanson to Irish fiddle jigs; humorous Dalmatian songs to a Sephardic romance; and from the dances of south-eastern Iran to Balinese rice-pounding music. To introduce a popular flavour, he has added arrangements of three beloved Neapolitan songs.

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Bogdanovic: Music Gardens of the World
Naxos May 2026
CD
$19.99

Mix & Match

Sale

SCHEDRIN: Piano Terzetto / 3 Funny Pieces / Cello Sonata
SWR Apr 2007
CD
~~$20.99~~ $10.49

Sjungande Danser - Singing Dances from the North

GLAUX RECORDS

$21.99 May 01, 2026

In this recording, Brú explores repertoire from the folk dance and song heritage of Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Traditional tunes are blended with musical elements as diverse as baroque, contemporary, and a pinch of heavy metal. Tales about magical beings, spells, hope, and deceit unfold against the alluring backdrop of Nordic nature. The contrast between life and death, love and despair, is sometimes resolved tragically, but at other times with a more humorous, down-to-earth outlook.

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Sjungande Danser - Singing Dances from the North
GLAUX RECORDS May 2026
CD
$21.99

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The Way You Look Tonight

Ladybird Production

Vinyl

$26.99 May 17, 2024

Isabella Lundgren - vocals
Carl Bagge - piano, music arrangements
Musica Vitae - string ensemble

On the 20th of January 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of America. In his speech, he said: “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America”. With those words, he echoed the lyrics from the song "Pick Yourself Up," written by Dorothy Fields in 1936.

Dorothy Fields (July 15, 1904– March 28, 1974) was an American librettist and lyricist. She wrote over 400 songs, 15 Broadway musicals, and 26 films. Her strong characterizations, precise language, and heartfelt and humorous approach have granted her a special place in the history of American music and popular culture.

This album is a love letter to this remarkable woman who was way ahead of her time.

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The Way You Look Tonight
Ladybird Production May 2024
Vinyl
$26.99

Suder: Piano Works / Brunner, Höhenrieder, Hirokami, BRSO

Profil

$9.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 50% Mar 01, 2024

Joseph Suder was an excellent pianist. In his works the piano remained an expressive instrument and did not become (as has been the case in the works of many other twentieth century composers) a sort of a percussion instrument. In these piano pieces, works representing a cross section of his compositional output from 1911 to 1951, Suder is concerned with extending the expressive range oft he piano. Elements of very different character can be found here: dance and lyrical-serious song or humor and onomatopoeia. Although Suder proceeds from the precedents of the tradition like the dance types of the baroque, the Romantic scherzo, or the Song without Words, he transforms the tradition into something new by compressing form and expression in these short pieces and thus penetrating to what is essential.

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Sale

Suder: Piano Works / Brunner, Höhenrieder, Hirokami, BRSO
Profil Mar 2024
CD
~~$19.99~~ $9.99

QUARTETS & QUINTETS

GHB JAZZ FOUNDATION

$13.86 Aug 17, 2004

This CD contains songs from two separate performances recorded in June 1967 in Manchester, England. The first show features Wilson with Randy Colville, Ian Taylor and Dave Edwards. The second show features Wilson with Dave Shepherd, Ronnie Gleaves, Peter Chapman and Johnny Richardson.

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QUARTETS & QUINTETS
GHB JAZZ FOUNDATION Aug 2004
CD
$13.86