At the peak of his powers, but beset by cash-flow problems brought on by living beyond his means, Mozart composed his famous String Trio, K. 563 for his friend, fellow-mason and creditor Johann Michael Puchberg. While labelled ‘Divertimento’, this masterful six-movement work is one of Mozart’s most substantial pieces for string trio and one of his greatest works. The Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud, who has made a number of highly-praised Naxos recordings, joins prize-winning compatriot Lars Anders Tomter (who has recorded the Walton Viola Concerto for Naxos) and acclaimed German cellist Christoph Richter.

Includes World Première Recordings. Respighi’s unfinished First Violin Concerto in A major (1903) was revised and completed by composer/conductor Salvatore Di Vittorio, who directed its première in 2010. Harking back to the masterful writing of Vivaldi and Mendelssohn, the Concerto also foreshadows the orchestral technicolour of the great Italian composer’s ‘Roman Trilogy’ (Naxos 8.550589). The lyrical Aria and graceful Suite, newly transcribed by Di Vittorio, embody Respighi’s abiding love of Baroque music, while Rossiniana is a delightful reworking of Rossini’s piano music, Les riens (Trifles), much enhanced by Respighi’s contribution of new melodies and innovative orchestration.

The revelatory Naxos Casella series continues with two powerful works that grew from the tragedy of two World Wars. Searingly dissonant and ‘profoundly human’, the Elegia eroica (‘Heroic Elegy’) is Casella’s memorial to Italian soldiers killed in World War I. His Third Symphony, a commission for the fiftieth birthday of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, assimilates the influences and experiences of a lifetime into an exhilaratingly melodic, emotionally wide-ranging and truly organic whole. This third disc in the series completes the world première recording of all three Casella symphonies. Francesco La Vecchia and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma ‘have Casella in their bloodstream’ (MusicWeb International).

Polish pianist and composer Franz Xaver Scharwenka was raised in the spirit of European Romanticism, championing the music of Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Liszt, and gaining enormous popularity for his own compositions, which Liszt greatly admired. Scharwenka’s fourth and final Piano Concerto (which the composer performed under the direction of Mahler and Stokowski) is a work of genius which stands at the apex of his achievement. The shorter pieces on this album have recently enjoyed renewed popularity, proving the value of Scharwenka’s legacy for modern listeners though much of his music remains to be rediscovered.

Playing the rich-toned and highly responsive Stradivarius ‘Bonjour’ cello of 1696, on loan to her from the Canada Council of the Arts, the Canadian cellist Soo Bae interprets Alfredo Piatti’s technically demanding and emotionally rewarding Capriccio on a theme from Pacini’s opera Niobe and his virtuosic Twelve Caprices with seeming effortlessness. Winner of the 2005 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and selected by Musical America as ‘New Artist of the Month’ (March 2009), Soo Bae enjoys a busy international career.

Robert Schumann’s literary interests influenced his choice of the poems he used for his songs, many of which were composed in a burst of activity during the ‘Year of Song’ 1840. This sixth disc in the Naxos series of the complete Schumann Lieder features the 26 songs of Myrthen (Myrtles), which date from February of that year. Dedicated to his beloved Clara (myrtles were used for bridal wreaths), this album of exquisite songs explores themes of devotion, longing, loneliness, matrimony and maternity. His Six Poems and Requiem of August 1850 set mournful texts by Lenau, concluding with an anonymous Medieval poem ‘Héloïse’s lament for Abelard’.

The plot of La cambiale di matrimonio (The Bill of Marriage), which Rossini composed when he was just eighteen years old, revolves around the farcical attempts of Tobia Mill, a rich English merchant, to combine business with pleasure by forcing his daughter, the lovely Fanny (‘merchandise’) to marry Slook, his rich colonial correspondent from America, by means of a bill of exchange. Eventually, it is the gallant Slook himself who persuades Mill to allow Fanny to marry her true love, Edoardo Milfort.

Past Future – for the first time a record featuring the electric bass as solo instrument with symphony orchestra! Magnus Rosén is a former member of multi-platinum and award winning heavy-metal act Hammerfall, but has in later years pursued a career as an electric-bass soloist. On this his first album with a symphony orchestra, both Magnus’ own compositions as well as music written and arranged especially for this unusual combination are performed.

The violin sonatas by Alfred Schnittke extend over his whole career. The First Sonata is among his earliest major pieces while the Second Sonata typifies the confrontational manner of the works that followed. The much later Third Sonata possesses the spareness and simplicity found in the music from the composer’s last decade, paradoxically shared with the two movements of a violin sonata that Schnittke wrote as a student in 1954 and 1955, and that was only discovered after his death.

Pierre Rode’s music represents the full flowering of the French violin school founded by his mentor Giovanni Battista Viotti. Naxos’s recordings of his 24 Caprices (8.570958) and Violin Concertos Nos. 7, 10 and 13 (8.570469) have received critical accolades, with Nos. 3, 4 and 6 to be released on 8.570767. The virtuosic 12 Etudes heard here run the gamut from graceful to vigorously dramatic, testing the artistry and technique of the solo violinist to the utmost. The three Duos present fewer technical demands, concentrating instead on lyricism, elfin sprightliness and dynamic contrasts. Award-winning Nicolas Koeckert, who performs regularly as a soloist with leading orchestras from around the world, is joined on this recording by his father, the internationally-renowned chamber musician Rudolf Koeckert.

Alexandre Dumas père’s light-hearted tale of dubious paternity and political intrigue set in the Austrian Tyrol forms the basis for American composer Louis Karchin’s comic opera Romulus. Full of surprises and delights, well-rounded characters and a lively sense of theatricality, Romulus boasts memorable music. ‘While studying opera, I was intrigued by how effortlessly Strauss and Wagner could attain a seamless flow,’ notes Karchin, ‘and I tried to emulate this.’ The Washington Square Ensemble, praised for its ‘polished, lively performance’ (The New York Times) is joined by a cast of first-class singers conducted by the composer.

“The concept of Echoes was to select well-known short works – five to ten minutes in length – and to transform them for our present time. I picked six of my closest composer-friends, and asked them to arrange, orchestrate, or simply be inspired by an older work they loved, and to create something original for this recording. Each new work presented here is thus an ‘echo’ of an earlier piece. ” – Gerard Schwarz

“In one way or another all of the works on this disc – spanning thirty-three years from 1972 through 2005 – reveal an ongoing aspect of my creative process that looks back in order to move forward. It’s about being in the present by unraveling memories and feelings – both joyful and full of loss – from the past,” writes American composer Chester Biscardi, a recipient of numerous prizes and fellowships including the Rome Prize and an Academy Award in Music.

John Philip Sousa personified the comparative innocence and brash energy of America around the turn of the 20th Century. The Charlatan was second only to El Capitan in popularity, while the U.S. Field Artillery March is the official march of the United States Army. A number of the other marches on this album were drawn from Sousa’s musicals, quote from other popular musicals or include various national anthems. ‘Keith Brion, one of the foremost authorities on the music of Sousa, has been building an extensive library of Sousa’s music for Naxos since 1998… Sousa-lovers will want the whole series.’ (Fanfare)

Born in Spain and raised in Chile, Xavier Benguerel plays an important part in his native country’s musical life, his compositions influenced by the work of Bartók, Stravinsky and the Second Viennese School. The concerto form has long fascinated the composer, whose innovative and ever-changing approach draws the listener into the individual sound-worlds of each work. Recorded live during the Aujourd’hui Musique Festival in Perpignan and featuring a number of musicians closely associated with Benguerel’s work, this album is an excellent introduction to his atmospheric and fascinating music.

Joaquín Turina’s songs are little-known today, but not only was he part of an important and influential group of early twentieth-century Spanish composers such as Albéniz, Falla and Granados, he possessed a beautiful and individual compositional style. This can be heard clearly in these songs, which range from the ethereal Ave María, with its exquisite piano accompaniment and transcendent vocal line, to the joyfully exuberant Las locas por amor (Women passionate for love) and the playfully humorous ¡Vade retro! (Get thee behind me!). Chilean-born soprano Carolina Ullrich won First Prize in the 2008-09 Young Concert Artists International Auditions as well as the Princeton University Concerts Prize, and has also received other prestigious awards.

The subject of Faust, the scholar who sold his soul to the Devil in return for youth and power, had a particular attraction to artists in the nineteenth century, when Faust might appear as a human hero, an opponent of ancient tyrannies, political and religious, and the Devil himself might seem to have similar attractions. Liszt based his A Faust Symphony on the literary work of his great predecessor in Weimar, Goethe, whose monumental and influential poetic treatment of the subject ended in the final redemption of Faust through the power of love and of the woman he had wronged, Gretchen.

The son of Alessandro Scarlatti, who created a new school of opera in Naples, Domenico Scarlatti is particularly distinguished for his remarkable keyboard sonatas, of which some 555 are known. This significant addition to early 18th century keyboard repertoire was written for performance on the various keyboard instruments of the Spanish court, where he was employed for many years, and in all its variety has long provided a valuable repertoire for pianists. Chinese pianist Duanduan Hao won First Prize in the 2009 Shanghai International Piano Competition.

The reputation of Johann Nepomuk Hummel – child prodigy, student of Mozart, successor of Haydn and Beethoven’s rival, widely-travelled piano virtuoso, composer, conductor, influential teacher and ingenious businessman – is once more on the rise. His variations, fantasies and potpourris on operas, including his own, were influential on Liszt and showcase his extraordinary abilities as both performer and composer. Winner of the Città di Stresa International Piano Competition, Madoka Inui has collaborated in literary-musical events with several distinguished authors and made a number of recordings for Naxos as accompanist in its Viennese series devoted to the art of solo instruments.

All World Première Recordings. The music on this sixth album of the piano music of Frederic Mompou presents works recently discovered by Jordi Masó in the Biblioteca de Catalunya’s Mompou Collection and at Mompou’s home. The recording complements Masó’s previous volumes released on Naxos (8.554332, 8.554448, 8.554570, 8.554727 and 8.570956). All were written between 1910–18 and show a highly gifted young composer whose musical idiom was already well formed. “Masó’s set is the modern choice, cleanly imaginative” (zarzuela.net). “Masó is a strong pianist completely at home in this idiom” (American Record Guide).

This eccentric and often amusing collection contains Peter Dickinson’s rags, blues and take-offs in first recordings of all but one of the works. It supplements two other Naxos releases by the British composer, writer and pianist: Complete Solo Organ Works (8.572169) and Apocalypse-Larkin-Forgeries (8.572287). The rags are in the notated tradition of classical ragtime. Christopher Palmer said about Dickinson’s music, ‘Conflicts, juxtapositions, attempted syntheses – his work is full of them, all shook-up, all mixed up, all jazzed-up… yet always keenly imagined and meticulously reasoned and realised’. Dickinson has been hailed by Gramophone as ‘a composer who has escaped the confines of the predictable without ever ceasing to communicate’.

Max Reger’s Twelve Pieces, Op. 80, explore a wide-ranging selection of short musical forms suitable for performance as a complete suite in recital or as individual items within the celebration of the Christian liturgy. Numbers 7 and 8 are performed on Volume 8 (8.570455) in this Naxos series of Reger’s organ works. His Thirteen Chorale Preludes, Op. 79b, include settings of famous hymn tunes such as Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott, Mit Fried und Freud, Nun danket alle Gott and Auferstehn. Hans-Jürgen Kaiser plays the magnificent 72-stop, four-manual Rieger-Sauer Organ in Fulda Cathedral, which may also be heard on other volumes in this important series.

This fourth instalment in the Naxos series of Rubinstein’s middle period Chopin recordings (after the two Piano Concertos on 8.111296, the Polonaises on 8.111346 and the Waltzes and Impromptus on 8.111365) presents recordings from the two extreme ends of the period. The Sonata and Preludes were recorded in 1946 and first issued on 78 rpm discs, while the remaining selections were recorded on tape in 1957 and 1958. When the recording of the Preludes, Rubinstein’s only commital of the work to disc, was issued in the UK in 1955, Gramophone declared: ‘As a whole, this masterly performance is the best we have had so far of Chopin’s great work’.

Fritz Kreisler is often represented as an indolent charmer, yet it is clear that his vast acclaim was founded on a great deal of hard work in both the concert hall (at the start of the 1913-14 season the great violinist had 90 American concerts scheduled over five and a half months) and the studio, where long sessions were not uncommon. For the main work on this album of American recordings made at the time of the Great War, Bach’s Double Concerto in D minor (slightly abridged so as to fit on three 78rpm sides), Kreisler is joined by the Russian violinist Efrem Zimbalist. The Appendix features three tracks with soprano Geraldine Farrar and the only surviving recording of Kreisler-as-pianist, playing Dvořák’s Humoresque.