BOHUSLAV MARTINU
Martinu: Chamber Music (Incls Piano Quartet No. 1) Daniel Adni (piano) Young-Chang Cho, Alexander Ivashkin (cellos) Joel Marangella (oboe) Rainer Moog (viola) [ Naxos / CD - released 12/Jan/2003 ] "The Piano Quartet...fares well in the Naxos performance...This alone is worth the price of the disc, but there is much else of value besides...the oboe Quartet and Viola Sonata should not be lightly dismissed." - BBC Music Mag. - Nov. 1996 |
LENNOX BERKELEY / JOHANNES BRAHMS / JONATHAN LESHNOFF
Berkeley / Brahms / Leshnoff: Horn Trios David Cooper (horn) Alexander Kerr (violin) Orion Weiss (piano) [ Naxos / CD - released 27/Jan/2023 ] Lennox Berkeley's Trio is lively and characterful with a sequence of ingenious and playful variations. GRAMMY-nominated Jonathan Leshnoff is one of America's leading contemporary composers and his 2016 Trio moves from darkness to light. |
W.A. MOZART
Mozart: Masonic Works, Cantatas & Funeral Music Die Kölner Akademie Choir and Orchestra / Michael Alexander Willens John Heuzenroeder, tenor; Mario Borgioni, bass Alexander Puliaev, fortepiano; Will [ BIS SACD / Hybrid SACD - released 23/Feb/2018 ] Following their 11-disc cycle of Mozart's piano concertos recorded with Ronald Brautigam, Die Kölner Akademie and Michael Alexander Willens in 2017 released a disc with two of Mozart's best-loved serenades: the Posthorn Serenade and Eine kleine... |
JOHANN WENZEL KALLIWODA
Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 / etc Die Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens [ CPO / CD - released 10/Feb/2011 ] CPO continue their exploration of little-known composers and present two symphonies by the Bohemian composer Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, an insider's tip to those who follow the generation between Beethoven and Schumann/Mendelssohn. |
W. A. MOZART
Mozart - Marches & Serenades Die Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens (conductor) [ BIS SACD / Hybrid SACD - released 24/Feb/2017 ] Die Kölner Akademie and Michael Willenshave previously recorded Mozart's complete piano concertos with Ronald Brautigam, earning praise for their fresh and colourful contributions to the series. The team now releases the first of four projected disc... |
BEETHOVEN / HAYDN / WEBER
Folk Song Arrangements [2 CD set] Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Edith Mathis, Alexander Young, Julia Hamari, RIAS Kammerchor, with accompliment [ Deutsche Grammophon SBS Eloquence / 2 CD - released 1/May/2010 ] "Between them these discs contain forty-six songs and over two hours of delightful and often neglected music. Taken a few at a time I find that they lift the spirits and open the ears delightfully." (MusicWeb Jan 2010) |
RICHARD WETZ
Ein Weihnachtsoratorium auf alt-deutsche Gedichte op. 53 Dombergchor Erfurt / Philharmonischer Chor Erfurt / Thueringisches Kammerorchester Weimar / George Alexander Albrecht [ CPO Records / CD - released 26/Oct/2011 ] After Richard Wetz's Requiem, a sacred composition regarded as the summit of his oeuvre, we are now releasing his Christmas Oratorio to Old German Poems, which occupied him for two years (1927-29). Wetz was a symphonist through and through, and his... |
STEFANO LANDI
Landi: Morte d'Orfeo (complete opera recorded in 2018) Dutch National Opera / Cecilia Molinari, Renato Dolcini, Alexander Miminoshvili, Gaia Petrone / Christophe Rousset, conductor [ Naxos DVD / DVD - released 20/May/2020 ] Stefano Landi wrote the operas La morte d'Orfeo (1619) and Il Sant'Alessio (1632), as well as masses, psalms, madrigals and arias. He was maestro di cappella in Padua and Rome, and later a singer in the Sistine Chapel. |
STEFANO LANDI
Landi: Morte d'Orfeo (complete opera recorded in 2018) BLU-RAY Dutch National Opera / Cecilia Molinari, Renato Dolcini, Alexander Miminoshvili, Gaia Petrone / Christophe Rousset, conductor [ Naxos Blu-ray / Blu-ray Disc - released 20/May/2020 ] La morte d'Orfeo is regarded as the first Roman-style secular opera and is considered a milestone in the development of the genre opera as a whole. The substantial ensemble numbers are typical of the Roman opera style. |
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN
Scriabin: Symphonies Nos 1 & 2 Ekaterina Sergeeva (mezzo-soprano) & Alexander Timchenko (tenor) / London Symphony Orchestra & chorus / Valery Gergiev [ LSO Live SACD / 2 Hybrid SACD - released 1/May/2016 ] "there's a great sense of freedom in this music that Gergiev manages to create ... Gergiev's volatility really works in this Scriabin." CDReview |
GLINKA
Ivan Susanin (A Life for the Tsar) (complete opera recorded in 1947 & 1950) Elizaveta Antonova / Alexander Hosson / Maxim Mikhailov / Bolshoi Theatre Chorus / Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra / Alexander Melik-Pashayev (conductor) [ Naxos Historical / 3 CD - released 29/Jan/2006 ] Mikhail Glinka, the founder of the Russian nationalist school of opera, was the first Russian composer to have his works accepted outside Russia itself. Berlioz admired his compositions and Liszt used them as the basis for several of his piano... |
NAPRAVNIK / BLUMENFELD
Works for Piano and Orchestra Evgeny Soifertis (piano) / BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Alexander Titov, conductor [ Hyperion Romantic Piano Concertos Vol 37 / CD - released 10/Aug/2005 ] 'The Concerto Symphonique is a perky, extrovert piano concerto, full of nifty passage-work, if light on musical substance, and The Fantaisie Russe, full of Lisztian flourishes and apparently much admired by Tchaikovsky, is based on three Russian folk... |
GEORGE ENESCU
Enescu: Piano Quintet in D major / Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A major, Op. 11 (arr. piano & string quintet) Fine Arts Quartet, Alexander Bickard (double bass), Gisele Witkowski & Fabio Witkowski (piano) [ Naxos / CD - released 18/Aug/2023 ] It was in Paris just before the end of the 19th century that George Enescu began to compose prolifically, but it is only in recent years that a number of these scores have emerged. The Piano Quintet in D major is one such work, lost for decades, but... |
Erno DOHNANYI
Dohnanyi: Symphony No. 2 & Two Songs Florida State University Symphony Orchestera, Alexander Jiménez [ Naxos / CD - released 2/Jun/2014 ] Dohnányi's powerful Symphony No. 2 was composed toward the end of the Second World War but its large canvas reflects not so much his wartime experience as his own artistic credo as a Romantic composer. Of the symphony and its philosophy he wrote:... |
BELLINI
La Sonnambula (complete opera recorded in 1992) Francesco Ellero d' Artegna / Alexander Papadjiakou / Raul Gimenez / Netherlands Radio Choir / Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra / Alberto Zedda [ Naxos Opera Classics / 2 CD - released 20/Aug/2007 ] "The singing is of amazingly high quality.. Orgonasova is simply wonderful - vibrant, girlish, fluid, singing off the text and with no problem with the role's sometimes outlandish upper reaches....I can't imagine a finer current exponent of the role.... |
ANTOINE & MAX BOHRER
Bohrer: Grande symphonie militaire Friedemann Eichhorn (violin) Alexander Hülshoff (cello) / Jena Philharmonic Orchestra, Nicolás Pasquet [ Naxos / CD - released 16/Feb/2024 ] The Bohrer family produced a succession of distinguished musicians of whom the brothers Antoine, a violinist who studied with Rodolphe Kreutzer in Paris, and cellist Max were the most eminent. |
PROKOFIEV
Complete Music For Violin (Includes Violin sonatas & Cinq Malodies, Op. 35b) Frank Peter Zimmerman (violin), Alexander Lonquich (piano) / Berliner Philharmoniker under Lorin Maazel / Philharmonia Orchestra under Mariss Jansons [ Brilliant Classics / 2 CD - released 28/Mar/2006 ] Prokofiev did not play the violin himself. Nevertheless he composed a substantial amount of varied works for this instrument: orchestral and chamber music. |