World Première Recordings
American composer and pianist William Perry is credited with playing a significant role in the revival of interest in films of the silent era. As Music Director of the Museum of Modern Art Film Department in New York City, he composed more than a hundred film scores, many of which received international recognition through the Emmy Award-winning television series, The Silent Years, hosted by Orson Welles and Lillian Gish. In this recording, music from Perry’s silent film scores has been given full symphonic concert treatment so that a whole new generation can experience the unending flow of melody, the exuberant dance rhythms, the rich orchestral palette and the keen sense of period and style that are characteristic of his writing.

Award-winning composer James Aikman’s music is ‘accessible and inventive’ (Fanfare magazine), and these three works embrace a colorful tapestry of stylistic influences, including jazz and pop. The elegantly simple and subtle Ania’s Song is described by the composer as a ‘peaceful isle’ between the supple lines and intricate counterpoint of the Violin Concerto and the Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra with its translucent orchestration and echoes of Alban Berg. Leading American soloists join one of Russia’s finest orchestras for a recording with truly international appeal.

A contemporary of Toru Takemitsu, Teizo Matsumura combined European influences with Asian musical traditions. His tautly-constructed Symphony No. 1, a work of genuine power and intense sonic splendour, evokes the image of innumerable locusts swarming over the earth. Symphony No. 2, written over 30 years later and inspired by a poster of a pair of sumo-wrestler-like statues standing at the entrance to a famous Buddhist temple in Nara, Japan, is a soulful monologue of alternating sorrow and hope. The richly expressive symphonic poem To the Night of Gethsemane, inspired by Giotto’s fresco The Kiss of Judas, was Matsumura’s last orchestral work.

Includes World Première Recordings
Frank Ticheli’s award-winning Symphony No. 2 has been described as ‘uninhibited, high-flying and intensely rhythmic’ (South Florida Sun-Sentinel). Angels in the Architecture was inspired by the forms and ornamentation of the Sydney Opera House, contrasting divine light with turbulent darkness to pose the unanswered question of existence. Ticheli is joined by his two major influences in first recordings of Pulitzer Prize-winning Leslie Bassett’s terrific Nonet and the potent messages of 2007 Musical America Composer of the Year William Bolcom’s First Symphony for Band.

World Première Recording
Prize-winning French composer Laurent Petitgirard has written accomplished music in many forms, notably symphonic and music for film and television, but it is as an operatic composer that he has received perhaps the greatest acclaim. His opera on the subject of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man [Naxos CD 8.557608-09 / Marco Polo DVD 2.220001] was hailed as “a compelling and moving score – the composer’s melodic gift is very much his own” (Sunday Telegraph). Guru, completed in 2009, is a work of similar stature. Ostensibly it concerns mass suicides in a cult, reminiscent of the 1978 Jonestown suicides, but Petitgirard’s pleas for humanity, and against manipulation, are expressed with tremendous, very personal power, and compelling theatrical immediacy.

Little is known about Jean Baptiste Loeillet de Gant’s life, but his solo recorder sonatas have retained their popularity from their origins in the Baroque period to the present day. Strongly influenced by the violin sonatas of Corelli, these pieces combine Italian and French characteristics to create expressive and virtuoso chamber music of the greatest elegance and finesse. Daniel Rothert brings his “warm, refined tone” (American Record Guide) to a selection of the best sonatas from Opp. I-IV.

One of Prokofiev’s best loved works today, Romeo and Juliet was initially declared ‘impossible to dance to’. The composer resorted to making Symphonic Suites of the work, subsequently arranged for viola and piano, with the composer’s full approval, by renowned Soviet performer and founder of the Beethoven String Quartet Vadim Vasilyevich Borisovsky. The adaptation loses little from Prokofiev’s timeless score through expert utilization of the viola’s full technical possibilities, a quality enhanced by the ‘sensuous and dramatic’ (The Strad) artistry of outstanding viola player Matthew Jones.

Ned Rorem’s clarity of emotional expression is perfectly suited to the ‘breathy gold’ of the flute. Covering much of the composer’s career, these pieces range from the early Mountain Song which captures the spirit of a rural Kentucky folksong, to the meditative and spectacular Four Prayers. Rorem worked closely with and was “honored to be so dazzlingly represented by” the performers on this recording, describing flutist Fenwick Smith as “a Faun and a Daphnis all in one.”

Whether writing under his own name or that of his alter ego P.D.Q. Bach, Peter Schickele writes music which is a constant delight, full of variety, energy and fun. AYear in the Catskills is a five-movement quintet – a seasonal retrospective suffused with clever baroque tints, elements of pastoral fantasy, and a jazzy finale to dissipate any feelings of melancholy. The other works offer a variety of combinations and textures. Gardens illustrates Schickele’s appealing use of colour, whilst Dream Dances is a jaunty frolic from the baroque sarabande to the jitterbug. Diversions goes one better, with movements devoted both to billiards and a New York bar; music of huge vitality and great wit.

Music for mixed ensembles has been a feature of the music of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies from the very beginning, as has the use of earlier musical styles ranging from a few years before to centuries earlier. Linguae Ignis, premièred in 2002 by the forces that perform it on this disc, is a beautiful, elegiac work. Maxwell Davies entwines two Pentecostal Plainchants, gradually generating rich dance patterns, to which the solo cello responds with eloquent reserve. Dating from much earlier, Vesalii Icones, which also has a prominent rôle for solo cello, is a set of fourteen dances, based on illustrations by Vesalius, that play out the Stations of the Cross in music of profound ritualistic expression. By contrast the Fantasia and Two Pavans provide a sardonic and provocative gloss on Purcell.

World Première Recordings
Holbrooke is a fascinating and important figure in British music. His Violin Sonata No. 1 – also called a Sonatina – is a bright, engaging and light-hearted work that owes something to his interest in popular song. His Violin Concerto, subtitled ‘The Grasshopper’, was published in full score and in two versions for violin and piano – including a ‘sonata’ version with a somewhat technically less demanding final movement. In this recording we present the original ‘concerto’ version. This beautiful work, admired by the great critic Ernest Newman, is full of lyrical freedom, and also some coruscating technical demands. The Horn Trio took Brahms’s similar trio as a precedent, and is a work of great dignity and melodic appeal.

There are several descriptive scores in William Alwyn’s prolific output, including The Moor of Venice Dramatic Overture which examines the turbulent central character in Shakespeare’s Othello. The Serenade and the orchestral version of Seven Irish Tunes receive première recordings here, both covering a wide range of moods. Following his acclaimed recording of the Concerto Grosso No. 1 (8.570704), David Lloyd-Jones here completes the set, the second of which is scored for strings, and concluding with the Concerto Grosso No. 3 which is a tribute to Sir Henry Wood.

Steeped in an atmosphere of ancient Scottish musical tradition, Benjamin Britten’s setting of texts by Robert Burns in A Birthday Hansel was his final song-cycle. Who are these children? is another late cycle to poems by William Soutar, combining darkly dramatic musical depictions of wartime life with protest songs which hark back to the composer’s youth. Acclaimed Scottish tenor Mark Wilde’s sensitivities embrace both the vibrantly dramatic and “gently mellifluous” (Manchester Evening News) qualities in this deeply expressive repertoire.

As an internationally admired opera composer, William Vincent Wallace was perfectly placed to provide brilliant fantasies and paraphrases from the operatic repertoire, refashioned for the domestic piano market. He did not neglect his own works – there is an especially lovely aria from his opera Lurline, as well as an extensive fantasia on themes from Maritana, perhaps his best-known work. His instinct for the perfect transformation also included such favourites as Verdi’s Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves and Donizetti’s Una furtiva lagrima. Rosemary Tuck’s playing of Wallace has been acclaimed for her “ideally deft and scintillatingly assured performances.” (Gramophone). The legendary scholar and conductor Richard Bonynge performs at the piano on two of the tracks.

The Piano Trios, written between 1784 and 1797, represent Haydn’s art at its most enjoyable and fresh. Three of the trios in this recording were dedicated to Rebecca Schroeter, who lived in London and was a close friend of the composer. Trio No. 26 includes a version of the Adagio of Symphony No. 102, which it has been suggested was a favourite of hers. And the G major sports the famous ‘Gypsy Rondo’ finale (Rondo all’ongarese), one of the most ebullient and best loved movements in the entire repertoire. The Kungsbacka is one of the world’s finest trios, and their Mozart trio set (Naxos 8.570519) received outstanding reviews; “authentically felt and absorbingly communicated.” (Gramophone).

Includes World Première Recordings
Tim Fain has constructed an adventurous and exciting recital of American violin music. It takes in the concert version of Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach — Fain “played the hell out of the piece”, the composer says — as well as William Bolcom’s nostalgic Graceful Ghost Rag. Variety and lyricism are the watchwords of the selection, exemplified by the soaring lyricism of Kevin Puts’s Aria and by Lev Zhurbin’s lovely Sicilienne. Together, all these pieces offer a vibrant portrait of contemporary repertoire.

Widely acclaimed for the subtle artistry of his playing, Pablo Garibay has won numerous international competitions including the JoAnn Falletta (USA), Julián Arcas (Spain), Manuel M. Ponce (Mexico), René Bartoli (France) and Gevelsberg (Germany). Scarlatti’s ‘soul-searching’ Sonata in D minor, K.213 reveals even more of its expressive poignancy when arranged for guitar, and other sublime works in this recital are closely associated with the great Andrés Segovia, who described Tarréga’s Capricho árabe as ‘especially suited to reach the chords of a feminine heart’.

World Première Recordings
Alfano’s chamber music is receiving deserved recognition. The Violin Sonata is a powerful and impressive work, with elements of French impressionism, but essentially post-romantic in ethos. The Piano Quintet was Alfano’s last chamber work, premiered in 1946, and a compelling example of his belief in resilient lyricism, as well as a rejection of contemporary atonal music. It teems with imaginative touches, colours and rhythms. The previous release in this series of the Cello Sonata and Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano (8.570928) was praised for its “razor-edged accuracy, passion, and insight.” (Fanfare). Alfano’s opera Cyrano de Bergerac, with Plácido Domingo in the title rôle, is available on Naxos DVD 2.110270 and Blu-ray NBD0005.

Together with Casella, Malipiero and Respighi, Pizzetti was one of the leading composers of the generation of Italian composers born around 1880 (the so-called ‘generation of the 1880s’). The early String Quartet in A major has a delightfully open lyricism linked to the folk modes of the composer’s native province of milia, and is reminiscent in part of Dvořák’s rustic charm. From Pizzetti’s mature period, the String Quartet in D major pushes beyond traditional forms and projects an evocative and powerfully expressive individuality.

Composer, performer, teacher, music publisher and piano manufacturer, the Italian-English piano virtuoso Muzio Clementi stood at the vanguard of musical development in Europe. His piano sonatas influenced Beethoven with their treatment of complex harmony, structure, and texture. Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum, a collection of 100 stylistically diverse pieces, stands as a monument to Clementi’s technical and expressive mastery of the instrument. Award-winning pianist Alessandro Marangoni has been acclaimed as playing “naturally and beautifully” (ClassicsToday.com / Gradus ad Parnassum Vol. 1 / 8.572325).

José Antonio Carlos de Seixas shared a common keyboard tradition with his contemporary and colleague Domenico Scarlatti, and the question as to who most influenced the other remains unanswered. De Seixas absorbed and combined Italian influences with the musical traditions of Spain and Portugal to create spectacular sonatas filled with grand gestures and remarkable virtuoso effects. Volume One of this series (8.557459) was described as an “unusually satisfying disc of Baroque keyboard music, packed with real thrills” (All Music Guide).

Bartók’s early piano works demonstrate his Lisztian flair as a virtuoso pianist, and nowhere more so than the ambitious Study for the Left Hand, the first of his Four Piano Pieces. The second of the set owes even more to Liszt, as indeed do the exciting Two Elegies. Bartók made a piano transcription of the last two sections of his own nationalist symphonic poem, Kossuth, in the form of a Funeral March. He similarly arranged two of his song transcriptions under the title Petits Morceaux. First Term at the Piano is a series of delightful teaching pieces.

Antonio Soler was music master to the princes of Bourbon in El Escorial, the palace of the King of Spain. It’s probable that most of his keyboard sonatas were written for Prince Gabriel and these essentially private works – around 150 have survived – bear comparison with the works of Domenico Scarlatti and C.P. E. Bach. Soler was fond of dance rhythms and guitar imitations, as well as infectious and delightful modulations. These fifteen sonatas are heard here in the order proposed by Rubio’s catalogue. Pianist Martina Filjak – “brilliance, sensitivity and imagination” (The New York Times) – is a much admired international artist.

“Idil Biret’s reading of the Symphonie fantastique (WEA Finnadar SR9023) is, in many-respects the most remarkable thing of its kind in the repertoire… This is not a record that Berliozians or Lisztians will want to miss, for the Turkish pianist Idil Biret, a pupil of Cortot and Kempff, here confirms the favourable impression she made in this piece at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London during April of this year. There are a few minor deviations from Liszt’s text, but she possesses the very large technique and range of accent and dynamics needed; and she is excellently recorded.” (Max Harrison, Gramophone, 1979)

The Places - Bavaria, in south Germany, in earlier times ruled by an Elector, whose capital was Munich, is a region of the greatest variety. The places seen here start with the Bavarian Forest and its traditional craft of glass-blowing. Other scenes are of the great palace of the Thurn und Taxis Princes at Regensburg and the fine baroque monastery church of St George and St Martin at Weltenburg.

• Glass Factory, Frauenau
• Schloss Thurn und Taxis, Regensburg
• Abbey of St George and St Martin, Weltenburg

The Places - The Museo Vela is at Ligornetto in the Swiss-Italian canton of Ticino. The galleries have remarkable collections of the works of the Vela family, Lorenzo, Vincenzo and his son Spartaco. The principal part of the collection includes the works in gesso of Vincenzo (1820-1891), figures later reworked in stone. The Museo Vela houses the largest such exhibition in the world.
The Music - Music for the visit is by Chopin, with his piano Preludes, written principally during the winter of 1838-39 that he spent in Mallorca with his mistress, the writer George Sand. The stay there brought many difficulties, not least the early signs of the illness that was to bring about Chopin’s death ten years later. Other music included is Chopin’s Variations brillantes, written in 1833, based on a melody from an opera by Hérold and Halévy.