SIEGRIED WAGNER - COMPLETE ORCHESTRAL WORKS   CPO 999 655-2

The first son of Richard Wagner and Cosima Liszt – and grandson of Franz Liszt - Siegfried Wagner (1869-1930) was a prolific composer, writing more operas than his father. In 1896 he started conducting at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and around Germany, becoming artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930. He was  a pupil of Humperdinck and turned from a proposed career as an architect to music, although none of his many works has entered the standard repertory. His compositions are not Wagnerian in subject or treatment, but he acknowledged a technical debt to his father in some respects. This comprehensive seven-CD box set features the complete orchestral music of Siegried Wagner, including four discs of overtures, one of symphonic poems, various concertos and his ebullient Symphony in C. Siegfried’s fascinating and vivid tone paintings not only defy all classification and fill a major gap in the repertoire but also display a unique and independent compositional mastery of the highest order. The Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz are conducted by the excellent Werner Andreas Albert. Individually, these recordings have been met with great interest and this collected edition should enhance the reputation of an accomplished composer more usually found engulfed by his father’s shadow.

TOSCANINI – ALL BRAHMS           GUILD GHCD 2337/38

Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) was considered by many critics, fellow musicians and contemporary audiences to be the greatest conductor of his time. Born in Parma, Italy, he studied cello at the local music conservatory before joining the orchestra of an opera company, with which he began his career as a conductor at the age of 19. He went on to conduct the world premieres of Puccinis La Bohème and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, and as well as being resident conductor at La Scala, Milan, he conducted to great acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, at Bayreuth and at the Salzburg Festival. This double-album of historic broadcasts by New York Philharmonic conducted by Toscanini is devoted entirely to the music of Brahms - a composer whose work was central to Toscanini’s repertoire throughout his career. Toscanini was thirty years old when Brahms died. Although they never met, Toscanini regarded Brahms as a contemporary. This exciting album includes the only available versions in the best possible modern sound of major works by Brahms which the great conductor never recorded commercially, or hardly ever. Principal amongst these is the first disc containing Brahms’s two Serenades for Orchestra, Opus 11 and Opus 16, which Toscanini never recorded commercially. The second CD contains rare performances of the Academic Festival Overture and the Second Piano Concerto with Robert Casadesus as soloist. Toscanini again never recorded the Overture commercially and the Concerto just once. As an intriguing bonus, the CD is completed by four of Brahms’s part-songs, three from his Opus 17 set and one an arrangement by Brahms of a famous song by Schubert (Toscanini again never recorded these works commercially). This rare set of recordings will be hugely welcomed by all collectors of great conducting, especially of the Maestro renowned for his brilliant intensity and restless perfectionism.

SCHUBERT/BEETHOVEN/HARTMANN         CARUS 83.230

Karl Amadeus Hartmann has been called the greatest German symphonist of the 20th century. Born in Munich in 1905, he was the youngest son of the teacher and painter Friedrich Richard Hartmann. His first compositions were performed in the 1920s and show the influences of jazz and dadaism on his music. An idealistic socialist all his life, he voluntarily withdrew from musical life in Germany during the Nazi era, while remaining in Germany, and refused to allow his works to be played there. His music was condemned by the Nazi regime but continued to be performed abroad. After the fall of Hitler, Hartmann became a Dramaturg at the Bavarian State Theatre and was a vital figure in the rebuilding of West German musical life and his post-war works include eight symphonies. With its use of quotations from composers whose works were forbidden after 1933, the Concerto funebre demonstrates Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s resistance to the political situation in 1939, the year it was written. An extraordinary and prophetic work, inspired by the composer’s feelings about the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia, the Concerto funebre contains conflicting messages of hope, desperation and foreboding. Partially atonal in conception, its use of varied musical material grips the listener with immediacy, especially as played here by the fine German violinist Ulrike-Anima Mathé, with Frieder Bernius conducting the Streicherakademie Bozen. This excellent CD also features Schubert’s Ouvertüre in C minor and Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Major, both of which were composed for chamber music ensembles, through their clear orchestral traits soon found their way into the repertoire in the orchestral versions recorded here.

BANTOCK – ORCHESTRAL MUSIC           HYPERION CDS44281/6

Sir Granville Bantock was born in London in 1868, the son of a doctor. He was educated for the civil service but entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1889, where some of his earliest works were performed. He went on to became a conductor, founded and edited the New Quarterly Music Review and in1907 he succeeded Sir Edward Elgar as professor of music at the University of Birmingham, where he stayed for almost thirty years. After his retirement from the university, he continued to work prolifically as a composer, a conductor and an examiner for Trinity College of Music. Sir Thomas Beecham, eleven years Bantock’s junior, saw his gifts as principally operatic, praising what he describes as a ‘flow of genial melody, unmistakably of the ‘stagey’ sort, a solid but lively handling of the orchestra, and a by no means too common capacity for passing swiftly and easily from one contrasting mood to another’, finding in him one of the two outstanding figures in English musical life. Bantock is perhaps best known today for his colourful Pierrot of the Minute overture (1908) but he wrote a vast amount of other music all genres, much of it inspired by Asian and Celtic themes. Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss were a considerable influence on his large-scale orchestral works, many of which appear on this generous six-CD collection. Highlights include A Celtic Symphony for string orchestra and six harps, A Hebridean Symphony, Pagan Symphony ‘Et ego in Arcadia vixi’, Fifine at the Fair ‘A Defence of Inconstancy’, The Cyprian Goddess Symphony No 3, The Helena Variations, Sappho Prelude and Nine Fragments for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (with Susan Bickley), Sapphic Poem for cello and orchestra (with Julian Lloyd Webber), Camel Caravan from Omar Khayyám with chorus, Pierrot of the Minute and excerpts from The Song of Songs (with soprano Elizabeth Connell and tenor Kim Begley). Vernon Handley conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and these recordings, made between 1990 and 2003, have done much to promote the music of an undeservedly neglected composer.

SIBELIUS – TONE POEMS & INCIDENTAL MUSIC           TELARC CD-80320

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was one of the most popular and prolific composers of his time. His music played an important role in forming the Finnish national identity, although he was born into a Swedish-speaking family in Hämeenlinna in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland. Named Johan Julius Christian Sibelius - known as Janne to his family - he began using the French form of his name, Jean, during his student days. The core of Sibelius’s music is his collection of seven symphonies, with other famous compositions including Finlandia, Valse Triste, the Violin Concerto, the Karelia Suite and Lemminkäinen Suite (featuring The Swan of Tuonela as one of its four movements). He also wrote over a hundred songs for voice and piano, incidental music for thirteen plays and an opera (The Maiden in the Tower), as well as chamber and choral music and works for piano. Although he lived into his 90s, he completed almost no compositions in the last thirty years of his life after his seventh symphony (1924) and the tone poem Tapiola (1926). This 1992 recording by Yoel Levi and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra features wonderfully authentic performances of one of Sibelius’s earliest and most popular works, the Karelia Suite, as well as Pohjola’s Daughter (a thrillingly atmospheric and vivid symphonic fantasy), The Swan of Tuonela (based on a legend from the Kalevala epic of Finnish mythology) and the rousing Finlandia, composed for a patriotic pageant performed to mobilise popular opposition to the revocation of Finnish independence from the government of the Russian Empire.

BARBIROLLI – RUSSIAN FAVOURITES       GUILD GHCD 2325

The much-loved conductor and cellist Sir John Giovanni Battista Barbirolli was most closely associated with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he led for almost three decades. He was also music director of the New York Philharmonic and the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and conducted many other orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Renowned for his interpretations of music by English composers such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams, Barbirolli was also well-known as a conductor of the music of Gustav Mahler. Since his sudden death in 1970, the reputation of Sir John Barbirolli has grown, aided by a series of broadcast recordings which were never available during his lifetime, and many of his sterling qualities can be appreciated in the new anthology of performances from the 1950s featured on this highly desirable disc. The great man and his beloved Hallé Orchestra play works by Russian composers Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov (Capriccio espagnol), Anatole Liadov (his mystical ‘fable-tableau’ The Enchanted Lake) and Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky (excerpts from his Swan Lake ballet, Marche slave, and the Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture). All receive deeply sympathetic and virtuosic performances in admirable sound, making this a highly enjoyable collection.

IN MEMORY OF ARTURO TOSCANINI            MUSIC & ARTS CD-1201

Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) was considered by many critics, fellow musicians and contemporary audiences to be the greatest conductor of his time. Born in Parma, Italy, he studied cello at the local music conservatory before joining the orchestra of an opera company, with which he began his career as a conductor at the age of 19. He went on to conduct the world premieres of Puccinis La Bohème and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, and as well as being resident conductor at La Scala, Milan, he conducted to great acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, at Bayreuth and at the Salzburg Festival. In 1937 Toscanini escaped Italian and German fascism by leaving Europe for the United States, where the NBC Symphony Orchestra was created for him. He conducted the first broadcast concert later that year from New York City’s Rockefeller Center and in 1938, he conducted the world premieres of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Essay for Orchestra No. 1. Many memorable NBC concerts followed and in 1950 they were moved to Carnegie Hall, where many of the orchestra’s recording sessions had been held. The final broadcast performance took place there in April 1954, and during this concert Toscanini became ill and never conducted live in public again. After his retirement, aged 87, the NBC Symphony was reorganised as the Symphony of the Air and made regular performances and recordings until it was disbanded in 1963. This double CD features a concert given by the Symphony of the Air at Carnegie Hall in 1957 and includes music by Beethoven (the Eroica Symphony, conducted by Bruno Walter), Debussy (La Mer, conducted by Charles Munch) and Elgar (Enigma Variations, conducted by Pierre Monteux). Bonus tracks include recordings made by the (conductorless) orchestra in 1954: Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Berlioz’s Roman carnival Overture and Wagner’s Prelude to Act 1 of Die Meistersinger. Also available from Music & Arts is a newly issued CD of Toscanini conducting dramatic, emotionally-charged performances of Beethoven’s Third and Fifth Symphonies in concerts to celebrate allied victories in Europe and Japan (MUSIC & ARTS CD-753).

THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIGHT MUSIC – LIGHT MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK     GUILD GLCD 5128

Early on in the Second World War the BBC used to broadcast a daily programme of non-stop music called ‘Music While You Work’ intended to boost the morale of millions of British factory workers. When the show was not being broadcast, factories often played records on their own loudspeaker systems. Recognising the need for a series of discs offering catchy, tuneful music, in 1942 Decca started releasing 78s on its special ‘Music While You Work’ label. Many of these contained light music and a selection has been chosen for this CD, with popular orchestral and show music as well as true light music 'classics'. The BBC programme went on to become an institution in British broadcasting, lasting for 27 years. ‘Music While You Work’ was brought back for several editions to celebrate the BBC’s 60th anniversary in 1982 and the final broadcast was heard in 1995. Decca released an astonishing 400 78s in its ‘Music While You Work’ series, the last of which were issued 1947. The discs were deleted soon afterwards, so this is a rare opportunity to hear these enjoyable recordings. Most of the tracks here feature Harry Fryer and his Orchestra, and there are recordings by Richard Crean with the London Palladium Orchestra, Harry Davidson’s Orchestra (which played in 109 editions of ‘Music While You Work’ during the programme’s first year), the Reginald Pursglove Orchestra, Annunzio Paolo Mantovani’s world-famous orchestra (Adios, Conchita and Memories of Spain), the Studio Orchestra conducted by Philip Green and Ronnie Munro with the Scottish Variety Orchestra. The remastered sound quality is surprisingly good and the music makes an encouraging and wonderfully nostalgic background for spring cleaning. Other new releases in Guild’s excellent light music series include Beyond The Blue Horizon (GLCD 5129), Cornflakes (GLCD 5130) and Light Music On The Move (GLCD 5131).

PHILIP GLASS – HEROES SYMPHONY/THE LIGHT     NAXOS 8.559325

Philip Glass is perhaps the best known member from a school of American composers known as the minimalists. Others include Terry Riley, Steve Reich and La Monte Young, but Glass has been the most commercially successful due to his music’s accessibility and simple melodies. Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1937. After graduating from the University of Chicago, where he majored in mathematics and philosophy, he moved to New York and Paris to study music. After researching music in North Africa, India and the Himalayas, he returned to New York, renouncing his previous music, and applying eastern techniques to his own work. As well as his opera, Einstein on the Beach, he has written music for dance, theatre, chamber ensemble, orchestra and films. Having used several tracks from David Bowie’s 1977 album Low to create his Low Symphony, Philip Glass did the same for Heroes in his Heroes Symphony, written 1996 for American choreographer Twyla Tharp’s dance company. The original Bowie album was recorded with synthesiser virtuoso Brian Eno in Berlin, which was then still a divided city. Glass imaginatively expands the songs while remaining close to the harmonies of the originals and highlights include the title track, the wistful Abdulmajid, Sense of Doubt, the rhythmic Neuköln and climactic V2 Schneider. Also featured on this CD is The Light, written by Glass to a commission from Case Western Reserve University in 1987. Inspired by the Michelson-Morley experiment confirming the uniform speed of light, paving the way for its theoretical explanation in Einstein’s theory of Relativity two decades later, Glass's piece has an expressive introduction followed by an energetic main movement: a ‘before’ and ‘after’ mirroring the onset of modern scientific research. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the acclaimed Marin Alsop, gives compelling performances of both works. ‘It was though Philip had fed into my voice...but somehow had arrived, I feel, a lot nearer to the gut feeling of what I was trying to do’ - David Bowie.

SUNDAY EVENINGS WITH PIERRE MONTEUX     MUSIC & ARTS CD-1192 (13)

The French-born conductor Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) premiered many masterworks of the twetieth century, including Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Claude Debussy’s Jeux, and Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka. This great conductor became famous worldwide at the age of 38 by conducting the riotous world premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in Paris on 29 May 1913. The composer, fearing bodily harm, fled through a backstage window, while the imperturbable conductor persisted with the music. He would also conduct the first concert performance and one of the first two recordings of Stravinsky’s masterpiece, the other one conducted by Stravinsky himself. Pierre Monteux originally trained as a violist, performing for both Edvard Grieg and Johannes Brahms as a member of the Quatuor Geloso. Over the course of a long conducting career, he directed among others Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the Metropolitan Opera, the Boston Symphony, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris (which he formed), the London Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony (from 1935 to 1952). The remarkable concert performances selected and annotated here by Arthur Bloomfield were broadcast from California between 1941 and 1952 by Monteux with the Symphony Orchestra of San Francisco. Ten of the CDs were previously issued by Music & Arts but the last three discs in this marvellous 13-CD set contains nearly four hours of music that has not previously been issued. Although not originally intended as permanent recordings, these are performances of exceptional quality and the newly remastered sound is remarkably good. The huge range of music collected here gives a fascinating insight into the work of one of the greatest conductors the world has ever seen.

BEETHOVEN - ORCHESTRAL WORKS         WARNER CLASSICS 2564637792

Ludwig van Beethoven is perhaps the greatest composer of classical music, rivalled only by Mozart. He was born in 1770 in Bonn, Germany, and by the time he was 13 he was supporting his family as a court musician, having already written his first symphony. His father, an obscure tenor singer, was apparently a violent man, who would drag young Ludwig from his bed in order to ‘beat’ music lessons into his head. Despite such abuses, Beethoven developed a sensitivity and love for music, going on to study with Mozart, Haydn, Johann Schenk, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri. He began slowly to lose his hearing from the age of 30 yet increasing deafness did not end his career and his fame peaked in 1814 when his only opera, Fidelio, was successfully revived. Three years later he started to compose his magnificent Ninth Symphony. Beethoven died on March 26, 1827, appropriately during a violent storm, but his music continues to be held in high regard, forming the core of orchestral and chamber music repertoires around the world. This superb value box set from Warner Classics features all of Beethoven’s major orchestral works, including his nine symphonies, five piano concertos, the triple concerto for piano, violin, and cello, seven overtures (The Ruins of Athens, Coriolan, Leonore 1-3, Egmont and The Creatures of Prometheus), the violin concerto in D major, romances 1 & 2 for violin and orchestra, and the great Missa Solemnis. An excellent booklet provides notes for each work, with texts and translations. Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Arnold Schoenberg Chor, with soloists including Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Clemens Hagen, Gidon Kremer and Thomas Zehetmair. Harnoncourt was a pioneer of ‘historical’ performances with period instruments and his lithe interpretations of Beethoven’s work are refreshingly unaffected. Highly recommended.

STRAVINSKY/HINDEMITH - TO THE NEW WORLD AND BEYOND     CCn’C 02962

Kristjan Järvi (born 1972) is the youngest of the highly gifted Järvi musical clan. His father is the esteemed Estonian-American conductor Neeme Järvi, and his siblings Paavo Järvi and Maarika are also musicians. Born in Tallinn, Kristjan spent most of his childhood in New York and studied piano at the Manhattan School of Music (with Nina Svetlanova. After being assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for three years he became principal conductor of the Norrlands Opera Symphony Orchestra of Umeå in Sweden and has appeared as guest conductor with ensembles such as the Russian National Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. His repertoire includes pieces classical and romantic music but he is specialises in 20th century composers and contemporary music, having conducted the first performances of works by Erkki-Sven Tüür, Peeter Vähi and Arvo Pärt. This hybrid SACD disc from CCn’C Records features Kristjan Järvi and the Norrlands Opera Symphony Orchestra in little-known works by Igor Stravinsky (Symphony in Three Movements - his ‘War Symphony’, Four Norwegian Moods, Suite No.1, Suite No.2 and an arrangement of Sibelius’s Canzonetta) and Paul Hindemith (Concerto For Orchestra). Both Stravinsky and Hindemith left Europe to become American citizens and these pieces often reflect the conflicts and challenges they experienced in the New World. The orchestra responds enthusiastically  to Järvi’s lively direction to create performances of passion and distinction.

COPLAND - AMERICAN CLASSICS         NAXOS 8559240

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) forged a uniquely American style of composition and became known as ‘the dean of American composers’. His music combined modern music with traditional American folk styles and the harmonies of many of his works were inspired by the vast landscapes of his homeland. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Polish-Lithuanian Jewish descent (his father’s surname was ‘Kaplan’ before he changed it to Copland while in England before emigrating to the United States). Aaron Copland’s music education included time with Rubin Goldmark (one of George Gershwin’s teachers) and with Nadia Boulanger at the Fontainebleau School of Music in Paris, where he began to write his first full-fledged pieces. His early compositions on returning to the USA were jazz-inspired but his style soon evolved toward more accessible works such as Rodeo, a ballet score originally created for a string orchestra and later modified for full symphony orchestra. Originally known as Four Dance Episodes, Rodeo consists of four sections: Buckaroo Holiday, Corral Nocturne, Saturday Night Waltz and the irrepressible Hoe-Down. This new CD collection, devoted to Copland works inspired by the landscape of the American prairie, naturally features Rodeo as well as the Suite based on his ‘folkish’ score for the 1948 film of John Steinbeck’s novel, The Red Pony, starring Robert Mitchum and depicting life on a California ranch. The other two works included are less well-known but equally enjoyable: Prairie Journal, a vivid expression of life on a western range, and Letter from Home, completed in 1944 and poignantly evoking the feelings of nostalgia experienced at a far-away army camp. The excellent Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted with great brio by JoAnn Falletta.

TAKEMITSU - ORCHESTRAL WORKS           NAXOS 8.557760

Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996) was a largely self-taught Japanese composer, born in Tokyo, who explored the principles of western music and his native Japanese tradition both separately and in combination. He became interested in western classical music during the Second World War by listening to American military radio and his father’s collection of jazz records while recuperating from an illness. He was greatly influenced by French music, particular that of Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen. In 1951 he founded the Jikken Kobo, a group which introduced many contemporary western composers to Japanese audiences. He later incorporated Japanese instruments such as the shakuhachi (a kind of bamboo flute) into the orchestra. He first came to wide attention when his Requiem for string orchestra was heard by Igor Stravinsky, who went on to champion Takemitsu’s works. These include the orchestral piece A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden, chamber music, works for piano, electronic music, and film scores for almost a hundred Japanese films. Many of the formal concepts in his music depend on visual imagery derived from paintings, dreams, or his concept of the garden. The works on this CD span the composer’s career, starting with the delicate Solitude Sonore (1958), which already shows his brilliant command of orchestral colour. A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, one of his most performed works, interweaves silences, surges of dissonance and beautiful fragmentary melodies. Also included here are the ethereal Spirit Garden, written two years before the composer’s death, Dreamtime and film music for string orchestra (from José Torres, Black Rain and Face of Another). Marin Alsop and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra perform this original, sensuous music with great assurance, making this a fine introduction to ‘the Japanese Debussy’.

PIERRE MONTEUX IN FRANCE:1952-58     MUSIC & ARTS  CD-1182 (8)

The renowned orchestra conductor Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) was born in Paris, France, and later became an American citizen. He studied violin from an early age, entering the Paris Conservatoire at the age of nine. He became a good enough to share the Conservatoire’s violin prize in 1896 with Jacques Thibaud. He later took up the viola and played at the Opéra-Comique, before becoming the conductor of Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet company, the Ballets Russes. He conducted the premieres of Stravinsky’s Petrushka and The Rite of Spring as well as Debussy’s Jeux and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, establishing the course of his career, in which he was particularly acclaimed for his interpretations of Russian and French music. This invaluable 8-CD collection contains works that Monteux recorded commercially, as well as many new to his discography. Highlights definitely include his exuberant performances of Beethoven's Second, Seventh, Eighth and a wonderfully triumphant Ninth. Other notable interpretations here include Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Le Sacre du Printemps, Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Le coq d’or, Mozart’s Piano Concert No. 24 (with Robert Casadesus, piano), Prokofiev’s ‘Classical’ Symphony, Ravel’s Shéhérazade, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, and Franck’s Symphony in D Minor. All feature Pierre Monteux with the excellent National Orchestra.

PROKOFIEV/TCHAIKOVSKY         AUDITE 92.557 SACD

Mily Balakirev, one of the ‘Mighty Five’ amateur Russian composers of the mid-eithteenth century, encouraged Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to write a piece based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, knowing that Tchaikovsky had recently emerged from his infatuation with a Belgian soprano named Désirée Artôt. Balakirev continued to make suggestions about the work throughout the ten years before the final version was published in 1880. Described as an ‘Overture-Fantasy’ by its composer, the overall design is a symphonic poem in sonata-form with an introduction and an epilogue. The work has become one of the most popular in the classical repertoire and its passionate love theme has been used in many movies, including Wayne's World. Sergei Prokofiev’s monumental Fifth Symphony was premiered in 1945 in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer himself. The Red Army had announced its victory in the war a few minutes before the premiere, so the heroic spirit of the work fitted perfectly. The music was a great success at its premiere and remains one of Prokofiev’s most popular works. This rewarding SACD release features fine performances of both these fine Russian works by the Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra, directed by its permanent guest conductor, Thomas Sanderling. Founded by the government in 1956 to enliven Siberian cultural life, this orchestra has subsequently aquired an increasingly international reputation, giving concert tours throughout Western Europe and Japan.

AITA MADINA - BASQUE MUSIC COLLECTION, VOL. IX       CLAVES 50-2517/18

Rev. Francisco de Madina (Aita means ‘Father’) was born in Oñate, Guipuzcoa in 1907 and died in his home town in 1972. Ordained a Canon Regular of the Lateran in 1929, he studied music and theology at the Order’s seminaries before being assigned to a post in Argentina (his early compositions were often influenced by gaucho music). He was reassigned to Albany (New York) in 1955, where his priestly responsibilities and work as organist left him little time for composition. His works cover a wide range - from operas to masses and psalms; from symphonic suites to small pieces for orchestra, piano, organ, violin, harp and guitar. Madina’s musical style is conservative and is greatly influenced by the folklore of his native country, particularly the Basque region. Many works were commissioned by the Romero brothers and dedicated to the artists by the composer. This double CD set (the ninth in an excellent series of Basque music albums from Claves) features recordings by Los Romero of eleven Madina works, including the dramatic Concierto Vasco para 4 guitarras y orquesta (for four guitars and orchestra), the delightful Basque Rhapsody and the delicate Concertino Vasco para arpa y orquesta de cuerdas (for harp and string orchestra). The second disc features some of Madina’s shorter scores, including his Basque Christmas Suite, the serene Agur Maria, and the irresistible Basque Children’s Overture. Other performers here include Xavier de Maistre (harp), Ana Salaberria and Elena Barbé (sopranos) and the Basque National Orchestra, directed by Cristian Mandeal. This is opulently recorded music by a talented composer who deserves to be much better known.

MOZART - JUBILEE EDITION           DISKY HR 903708

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) is perhaps the most loved and admired composer across cultures, generations, languages and musical styles. In the year of his 250th Birthday, people from all over the world are celebrating his work by creating new museums, staging opera performances and putting on an extraordinary number of festivals, galas, special exhibitions and concert events (over 5,000 concerts are planned worldwide during 2006). Mozart's name summons up visions of powdered wigs, aristocrats, concert halls and opera houses, but his music  pervades all aspects our society, appearing in cartoons, films, elevators - just about anywhere that music is heard. No one needs an excuse to enjoy the music of this 18th century genius but the occasion of his 250th jubilee is as good a time as any to revisit a master of music in all its forms, inspired by a keen insight into the human heart. This excellent value box set of 10 CDs from Disky features music performed by some of the 20th century’s most famous orchestras (such as the Chicago Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic), conductors and soloists (including Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Erich Kunz). Altogether, there is more than 11 hours of music, from chamber works for piano through to sublime operas, concertos and symphonies. Highly recommended.

BACH/SCHERCHEN - WESTMINSTER ARCHIVES, VOL. 2     TAHRA WEST 3003-3004

The eminent German conductor Hermann Scherchen was born in Berlin in 1891 and played as a violist under Nikisch, Mottl, Strauss, Oskar Fried and Weingartner. In 1914 he became conductor of the Riga Symphony Orchestra and went on to direct many other leading orchestras, becoming one of the most important figures in the world of music in the twentieth century (he was one of the few conductors who did not use a baton). He famously promoted new talents such as Schoenberg and Berg and also conducted wonderful performances of music by more traditional composers, including Mozart, Bach, Händel, Beethoven and Mahler. This new double-CD release continues Tahra’s series of the Westminster recordings Scherchen made for Deutsche Grammophon in the 1960s, featuring a composer who was very important to him, particularly regarding the Art of the Fugue. Of particular interest is the Musical Offering (Offrande Musicale) that Hermann Scherchen orchestrated himself after becoming dissatisfied with the version by Roger Vuataz. The stereo recording has never previously been available on CD, and this release also features lively and eloquent performances of four Bach Suites. Scherchen was always ahead of his time and this splendid album shows why his recordings deserve to be better known today. See also the Berlioz Requiem - TAHRA WEST 3001-3002.

HOWARD HANSON - ORCHESTRAL WORKS     TELARC  CD-80649

The prolific composer Howard Harold Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, in 1896 to Swedish immigrant parents. He began learning the piano with his mother when he was six, and later studied with composer Percy Goetschius and at Northwestern University (with church music expert Peter Lutkin). Hanson became a teacher of music theory and composition himself and began to compose orchestral and chamber works. He was the first recipient of the Prix de Rome, awarded by the American Academy in Rome, and lived in Italy for three years, during which time he wrote his first symphony and studied orchestration with Ottorino Respighi. After returning to America, Hanson’s conducting career took off and brought him to the attention of George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera and roll film, who chose him to be director of the Eastman School of Music. Hanson held that position for forty years, taking it to a place of world pre-eminence in education and performing excellence. As a composer, he worked conservatively in the style of the late-Romantics, melodic inventiveness being evident in his large catalogue of music, from opera to instrumental works. Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra here give stirring performances of Hanson’s ‘Romantic’ Symphony No. 2 (composed for the Boston Symphony in 1930), his Merry Mount Suite (derived from an opera about the conflict between Puritans and Cavaliers), and the world premiere recording of Bold Island Suite. Written in 1961, this attractive Suite has three movements - ‘Birds of the Sea’, ‘Summer Seascape’ and ‘God in Nature’ - inspired by Hanson’s annual summer retreats to Bold Island, near the fishing village of Stonington, Maine. ‘This recording is essential’ - Time Out New York.

DISCOVER MUSIC OF THE CLASSICAL ERA           NAXOS 8.558180-81

The Classical era in Western music, falling between the Baroque and the Romantic periods, occurred largely in the 18th century and into the early 19th century. Although the term classical music is often used to mean all kinds of music in this tradition, it can also sometimes just mean this particular period. The commonly accepted beginning and ending dates are 1750 and 1820 but some sources regard 1730 as the start. At this time, the art, literature and architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome were being rediscovered and re-evaluated, which in turn strongly influenced the ‘modern’ art of the time. This was also a period of great social change and political unrest, with challenges to the old established order culminating in the French Revolution of 1789. Discover Music of the Classical Era comprises two CDs and a 100-page booklet written by Stephen Johnson, showing how all this was reflected in the music written during those turbulent yet intensely creative years. The music is by Mozart, Haydn, Stamitz, J.C. Bach, Boccherini, Gluck, Gossec, C.P.E. Bach and others. This release is one of Naxos’s admirable ‘Discover’ series, providing a valuable introduction to key areas of classical music and including a Timeline of events in music, history, art and literature. Combining well-chosen music with an authoritative essay, this way of exploring music is highly enjoyable and easily accessible. Others in the series include DISCOVER EARLY MUSIC (Naxos 8.558170-71, with music by Josquin, Dufay, Landini, Taverner, Tallis, Obrecht, Victoria and Palestrina, among others) and DISCOVER MUSIC OF THE 20th CENTURY (Naxos 8.558168-69, with music by Ravel, Schoenberg, Ives, Stravinsky, Bartók, Shostakovich, Messiaen, Britten, Cage, Reich and John Williams).

MUSSORGSKY/STOKOWSKI - PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION     NAXOS  6.110101

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky’s suite of 15 musical pieces, Pictures at an Exhibition, was composed in 1874. Originally written for piano, the work has proved irresistible to other composers and is now probably better known from their orchestrations and arrangements. The first to arrange Pictures at an Exhibition for orchestra was the Russian conductor Michael Touschmaloff, although his version includes only seven of the ten pictures. Other orchestrations have been made by, among others, the British conductor Sir Henry Wood and the Slovenian-born violinist Leo Funtek but the version produced by Maurice Ravel in 1922 has proved the most popular and enduring. Conductor Leopold Stokowski introduced Ravel’s version to his Philadelphia audiences in 1929 then wrote his own orchestration ten years later, considering Ravel’s masterful version insufficiently Russian and too subtle to do justice to Mussorgsky’s coarser idiom. Stokowski’s version omits two pictures, Tuileries and The Market Place at Limoges, perhaps because their subject matter was not Russian enough. This new recording features the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stokowski’s protégé José Serebrier, and was sponsored by the Leopold Stokowski Society. This SACD also includes Stokowski’s arrangements of other Mussorgsky works, including A Night on Bare Mountain and a concert version of Boris Godunov, as well as two pieces by Tchaikovsky and some traditional Slavic Christmas music. The recording qualityand performances are first-class and should help this forceful version of the Pictures to become more widely appreciated.

BAX - SYMPHONIC POEMS           NAXOS 8.557599

Arnold Bax (1883-1953) was born into a prosperous middle-class family in Streatham, London. He started writing music at the age of twelve and went on to produce seven symphonies, several tone-poems, overtures, ballet and film scores, concertos, chamber music, piano pieces, choral works and more than 130 songs. He also wrote short stories, plays and poetry under an Irish pseudonym. In the 1920s and early 30s he was regarded as a major British composer, alongside Elgar, Delius, Holst and Vaughan Williams,  but after his death he fell out of fashion. Only recently has his highly individual, romantic music been rediscovered by a new generation. This collection gathers together his five outstanding Symphonic Poems: Tinagel, The Garden Of Fand, The Happy Forest, The Tale The Pine Trees Knew, and the reflective November Woods. The most famous of these compositions is Tintagel, his shimmering, almost cinematic portayal of ‘the castle-crowned cliff of Tintagel’. The acclaimed Royal Scottish National Orchestra is conducted by David Lloyd-Jones, and this CD makes an excellent introduction to a composer Sibelius called ‘one of the greatest men of our time’.

DEBUSSY - ORCHESTRAL WORKS                 TELARC CD-80617

The French composer and critic Claude Debussy’s music was much influenced by Wagner, the writer Edgar Allan Poe, and the impressionist movement in painting that flourished at the end of the 19th century. He became one of the most important composers of the 20th century, developing a unique and sensuous style that broke many rules but remained essentially French. His compositions didn’t simply express an idea or tell a story, but created an ‘atmosphere’ through sound sketches and rich instrumentation. Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, played on this CD by the excellent Cincinatti Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Paavo Jarvi, relies on a series of repetitions and variations of its basic themes rather than any sense of development. Also featured here are two of Debussy's other best-known works, Nocturnes and La Mer, as well as the little recorded Berceuse Héroïque, a piece written.in 1914, shortly after the fall of Belgium at the beginning of World War I, to honour the Belgian king and people. The spellbinding Prelude here reveals the CSO at its best as the languorous yearning sweeps to a climax before tension fades. La Mer shows the orchestra’s great virtuosity, especially in the closing ‘Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea’. ‘The primary aim of French music is to give pleasure.’ - Claude Debussy, 1904.

MUSIC OF DARIUS MILHAUD - NICOLE PAIEMENT        KLEOS 5131

The award-winning conductor Nicole Paiement is Artistic Director of San Francisco’s BluePrint Festival and is Director of Ensembles at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she conducts the orchestra, chamber singers and full opera productions. She is also Artistic Director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble, which has a growing reputation for performing and commissioning works by living composers. This album includes world premiere recordings of Cantate de la Guerre by Darius Milhaud and API (bees), a work commissioned from the teacher and composer Elinor Armer, who studied composition with Milhaud and Leon Kirchner and piano with Alexander Libermann. The other pieces on this enjoyable and adventurous CD are Milhaud’s Sonata for Harpsichord and Violin; Aspen Serenade and Saudades do Brazil.

JACQUES THIBAUD IN CONCERT               APR 5644

The virtuoso French violinist Jacques Thibaud was born in 1880 in Bordeaux. His playing is typical of the elegantly suave classical French style and he was a member of a remarkable musical trio that also included cellist Pablo Casals and the pianist Alfred Cortot. Thibaud, who also became a renowned teacher, died in 1953 in a plane crash on his way to Japan. His 1720 Stradivarius instrument perished with him. This most valuable CD includes rare recordings of Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole (performed with the Orchestre Radio-Symphonique/Jean Martinon in 1953) as well as the Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto No.1 and Introduction & Rondo capriccioso (performed with the Hessichen Radio Orchestra/Alceo Galliera, also in 1953). The album also features Chausson’s Poème, recorded with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Ernest Ansermet in 1941, when Thibaud’s playing was at its most enchanting.

HAYDN/MOZART - ORCHESTRAL WORKS         BERLIN CLASSICS  017692BC

The excellent Chamber Orchestra of Berlin give vibrant performances of famous and not so famous works by Joseph Haydn (Double concerto for violin, harpsichord and strings; Symphony No. 45) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Divertimento in D major; Serenade in G major). Haydn’s little known concerto is conventional and light in tone without descending into banality and could in many respects almost be a late Baroque work. The outstanding soloists on this recording are Kevin McCutcheon (harpsichord) and the orchestra’s artistic director Katrin Scholz (violin). Mozart’s Serenade in G major ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ has long served as a perfect example of Classical composing, representing a smooth transition from the entertaining style of the serenade to the weightier one of the symphony. Haydn’s unique ‘Farewell Symphony’ was written in 1772 as a protest on behalf of his musicians, who were growing dissatisfied at being separated from their families in Eisenstadt during Prince Miklos’s seemingly never-ending summer sojourn at his palace in Eszterhaza. Haydn had the musicians snuff their candles and leave their desks one by one in an Adagio section at the end of the symphony.

FRANK BRIDGE - THE SEA & OTHER WORKS         NAXOS 8.557167

The work of the English composer and viola-player Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941) is at last beginning to find the wider audience he deserves, not least because he was the teacher of Benjamin Britten, one of whose earlier works is based on a composition by him. Bridge’s meticulously crafted music is full of haunting imagination and was much played in the earlier part of his career, during which time he was also a fine chamber music player and conductor. His later music took on a more radical style to which the musical public responded less favourably, and for 30 years after his death his major works were little played. It was around the time of the coronation of George V in 1911 that he composed his beautiful orchestral suite The Sea, which subsequently became a favourite at promenade concerts. This latest bargain-priced album form Naxos features an fine performance by the excellent New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Judd. The other works included are Bridge’s startling rhapsody Enter Spring, the tone poem Summer and Two Poems for Orchestra. Highly recommended.

J.S. BACH - THE COMPLETE ORCHESTRAL SUITES       TELARC SACD-60619

Johann Sebastian Bach composed remarkably few instrumental orchestral works. The most famous of these arehis Brandenburg Concertos, which were written in Baroque Italian Concerto style. His less well-known Orchestral Suites were composed in the French Baroque Style. The excellent Boston Baroque orchestra, directed by the American harpsichordist and conductor Martin Peariman, celebrates its 30th anniversary season by giving superb performances of the four suites on a single disc. There are no autograph scores for these works, so the music is principally known through instrumental parts copied out by Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel, among others. The first and fourth suites are thought ot have been composed during the 1720s, the third dates from 1731 and the second is from the late 1730s. They are presented on this immaculately recorded SACD in what has been determined to be their order of composition rather than their published order.

LAMOND/D’ALBERT - ORCHESTRAL MUSIC     HYPERION CDA67387

Born prematurely as a result of a steamboat collision on the Clyde, Frederic Lamond (1868-1948) lived a short walk from Eugen d’Albert in Glasgow and both of them became pupils of Liszt in Vienna. Lamond gained an international reputation as a concert pianist, especially as an interpreter of Beethoven. His only symphony, published in 1893, is reminiscent of both Brahms and Beethoven but with a distinct Scottish accent. It’s played here in great style by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Martyn Brabbins, together with Lamond’s striking concert overture From the Scottish Highlands, which tells the poignant story of Quentin Durward’s Burgundian adventures. This lively and revealing album also features an exuberant Sword Dance from Lamond’s opera, A Life in the Scottish Highlands, as well as Eugen d’Albert’s intriguing Overture to Esther. The six times married d’Albert was also a fine concert pianist and his operas, especially Tiefland, became well-known throughout Europe.

GRIEG/DVORAK/ELGAR         TELARC  SACD-60623

The Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra, directed by the Dutch/South African conductor Conrad van Alphen, perform three wonderfully Romantic compositions: Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Dvorák’s Serenade for Strings in E major and Elgar’s intimate three-movement Serenade for Strings in E minor. Antonin Dvorak’s work was often influenced by folk music and his Serenade for Strings is an uncomplicated yet sophisticated composition. Grieg’s delightful suite ‘From Holberg’s time’ was written to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Norwegian-Danish metaphysician Ludvig Holberg. The excellent Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra was founded by Conrad van Alphen and the Japanese violinist Makiko Hirayama in the year 2000, and in addition to its own concert performances in Rotterdam, the Orchestra regularly plays in such renowned venues as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Queen Elizabeth Hall in Antwerp. This outstandingly produced multi-channel surround SACD will play on all SACD and CD players, and the disc is also available in CD format (TELARC CD-80623).

SCHONBERG/STRAUSS - FRIEDER BERNIUS       CARUS 83.198

This Frieder Bernius recording of instrumental music features Arnold Schoenberg’s late Romantic psychogram Transfigured Night (in the version for string orchestra) and Metamorphoses by Richard Strauss. In Transfigured Night, Schoenberg drew directly on the earlier tone poems of Strauss and wrote that musically he wanted to limit himself to ‘represent nature and to express human feelings’. The subject of this programme music is the poem ‘Verklärte Nacht’ by Richard Dehmel, one of Germany’s finest lyric poets before the First World War. The content of Strauss’ Metamorphoses represents an ‘inner programme’ that expresses a deep sadness, reflecting the composer’s own sadness over the destruction in the last years of the Second World War of those places where he had experienced his greatest artistic triumphs. Frieder Bernius, conducting the Accademia d’Archi Bolzano, admirably recreates the original stylistic character of the music.

AFTER WORK HOUR, VOLS. 1, 2 & 3       BERLIN CLASSICS 0182712ART/ 0182722ART/    0182732ART

These three new ART compilations feature music designed to help you switch off after work and recharge your batteries. The titles of each CD have been carefully chosen to complement each other and open up the listener’s senses to appreciate classical music. The wide range of composers here include Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Grieg, Ravel (Pavane pur une Infante defunte), Sibelius, Verdi (la Traviata), Beethoven, Bizet (the Intermazzo from L’Arlesienne Suite), Mussorgsky, Satie (Gymnopedie No. 3), Debussy (Claire de lune), Tchaikovsky (Valse from Symphony No. 5), Franck and Granados (Andaluza). This is an enjoyable and gentle introduction to the pleasures of classical music.

MAX D’OLLONE - SYMPHONIC MUSIC         CLAVES  CD 50-2301

This welcome CD features premiere recordings of the some of the most important works for orchestra by Max d’Ollone (1875 –1959), who is better known as the composer of eleven operas, sacred and secular cantatas, and a large number of songs. The three-movement structure of Le Ménétrier, with its solo violin part, is reminiscent of a concerto but d’Ollone described it as a ‘symphonic poem in three parts with a solo violin’. Lamento is a meticulously orchestrated work with wonderfully melodic lines and delicate harmonies. The Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra is forceful and majestic, reminiscent of Saint-Saëns in its monumental, grandiloquent finale. This CD also features a short chamber music work, the Andante and Scherzo for Three Cellos. The soloists are Mark Kaplan (violin) and François-Joël Thiollier (piano), with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster. These are powerful performances of richly lyrical music that is both emotionally expressive and technically impeccable.