Handel’s violin sonatas have been staples of the repertoire for generations, but there has been considerable confusion about their authenticity. Early editorial practice saw to it that several authentic works were published for instruments such as flute and oboe, but more recent scholarship has established that originally they were written for the violin. All the sonatas are full of Handel’s dashing bravura and his gift for expressive slow movements, providing a series of beautifully proportioned masterpieces. Ariadne Daskalakis’s recording of the Tartini Violin Concertos (8570222) was welcomed with acclaim for its ‘grace and lyrical poetry’. (MusicWeb International)

Grieg’s beautiful works for string orchestra often owe their origin to poetic inspiration or to mountain vistas. Some were based on piano originals, including the Holberg Suite, a masterpiece of invention. All of these pieces show Grieg’s assimilation of Norwegian folk culture and his lyrical mastery, through which he sought to ‘give expression to the hidden harmonies in our folk melodies’. Volume 4 in this series (8570236) was described as containing ‘performances as fine as any in the catalogue. These are gorgeous, perfectly paced and thrillingly recorded’. (ClassicsToday.com)

Busoni’s monumental Piano Concerto was completed in 1904 and remains the longest piano concerto to have been heard in public. He thought of the work as his ‘Italian Symphony’ but this Concerto for piano, orchestra and male chorus is an unclassifiable product, and an extraordinary synthesis of Austro-German and Italian impulses. In its virtuosity and lyricism it is one of the most remarkable works in the repertoire, making use in its final movement of the ‘Hymn to Allah’, from Adam Oehlenschläger’s play Aladdin. Roberto Cappello triumphed at the Premio Busoni competition in 1976 and is a leading international soloist.

John Ireland’s radiant Piano Concerto was written for his protégée Helen Perkin, and is infused with her sense of vitality. The result is a brilliant work of high spirits and expressive longing. Perkin also premièred Legend, a dark, brooding evocation of the ancient landscape of Harrow Hill on the Sussex Downs. Of the solo piano works, the First Rhapsody is earlier, virtuosic, and in the Lisztian tradition, whereas Indian Summer is a rural postcard of beguiling simplicity. John Lenehan has recorded three volumes of Ireland’s solo piano music (8553700, 8553889 and 8570461) to universal admiration: ‘Lenehan offers a uniquely vital and dramatic reading of the sonata.’ (MusicWeb International on Vol 3)

Shostakovich’s Sixth and Twelfth Symphonies both had their origins in large-scale projects about Lenin, though the Sixth was eventually to emerge as one of the composer’s most abstract and idiosyncratic symphonies. The long, intensely lyrical and meditative slow movement that opens the work is one of the composer’s most striking. The Twelfth, one of the least played of Shostakovich’s symphonies in the West, became less a celebration of Lenin’s legacy than a chronological depiction of events during the Bolshevik Revolution. ‘The playing is fabulously crisp and committed, while the interpretations combine atmosphere and a sense of proportion – to the benefit of the youthful First, which receives an eerily effective performance, free of exaggeration.’ (Financial Times on Symphonies Nos 1 and 3 - Naxos 8572396)

All of the composers here combine elements of ancient Azerbaijani tradition with Western forms, colorful orchestration and vivid musical storytelling. This is epitomized in Vasif Adigezalov’s symphonically proportioned Fourth Piano Concerto, while Fikret Amirov adds a touch of Arabian exoticism into his Concerto. The bubbling energy of Tofig Guliyev’s ‘Gaytagi’ dance adds a splash of jazz, and Farhad Badalbeyli’s works depict The Sea in an expansive and atmospheric score, followed by the sad tale of the city of Shusha expressed in a vocalise.

International chess virtuoso François-André Danican Philidor’s fortunes as a musician at the court of Versailles were transformed when he turned his attention to the new genre of opéracomique. Sancho Pança, gouverneur dans l’isle de Barataria derives from Cervantes’s famous novel Don Quixote, covering Sancho Panza’s adventures as governor of a fictitious island on which a succession of characters plot to cure him of his delusions of grandeur. Opera Lafayette’s production of this comedy revue is a ‘sparkle of shining surfaces’. (Washington Post)

La virtù de’ strali d’Amore (The Power of Love's Arrows) was the first of ten operas Cavalli wrote with librettist Giovanni Faustini. Set in Cyprus, the plot involves enchanted and pastoral elements, love and its thwarting, the counterpointing of Man and God, sorcery, revelation and ultimate resolution, all accomplished in a brilliant series of scenes. A follower of Monteverdi, Cavalli reveals the influence of the older man but also his own pronounced independence. Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante have become one of the most admired partnerships in the history of Baroque music performance.