BWV 51-52, 84, 199

Among J.S. Bach’s 200 or so surviving church cantatas, these four for solo soprano include the popular Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen!, in which singer and solo trumpet engage in thrilling displays of virtuosity. In the other cantatas, Bach provides equally beautiful obbligato parts for violin, viola and oboe, whose interactions with the soprano heighten the emotional significance of the sacred texts. For the opening sinfonia of the most richly-scored cantata here, Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht, Bach makes use of a version of the first movement of his Brandenburg Concerto No. 1.

Alas How Swift, Cassandra's Song, Kaea Trombone Concerto

New Zealand-born Edinburgh-based Lyell Cresswell has composed works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, choir, voice and solo instruments which have been widely performed and broadcast. In The Voice Inside, he explores the ever-changing relationship between the soprano and violin soloists and the orchestra, while Cassandra’s Songs, which also set words by Scottish poet Ron Butlin, is concerned with exile, identity and belonging. Alas! How Swift embodies in musical terms the inescapable passing of Time. His Trombone Concerto takes its name Kaea from the Maori wooden war trumpet used to terrify enemies and raise alarms.

Carol Ann Duffy (poet), Sasha Johnson Manning (composer)

This new sequence of Christmas carols was written in 2007 by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy and composer Sasha Johnson Manning, and premièred in the same year. The Manchester Carols re-tell the Christmas Story for the 21st Century, celebrating a child’s birth and all that child was to become: a man who lived by a humble, selfless creed, championing the marginalised in a society which was, as it is now, fraught with political tensions. These carols are for everybody, the believer and the non-believer, people of other faiths and everyone wishing to join in the Christmas celebrations.

The A-Z of Classical Music 3rd edition has been expanded to include even more composers and 150 bonus music tracks. The 930-page illustrated book details the lives of hundreds of composers, from Aaltoila to Zwilich, via Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and others. Like the range of Naxos recordings itself, this set highlights the extraordinary breadth of classical music and its masters across the centuries; it is a rich and inspiring resource for everyone!

• 2 CDs: 2½ hours of music
• Glossary of musical terms
• List of classical music in over 450 films

The Dominion Quartet continues its exploration of the string quartets of Alfred Hill, an Australian-born composer who studied in Europe and lived for much of his life in New Zealand. The Fifth pays tribute to France, America, Italy and Britain, nations that were allies during World War I. In the Seventh, hints of the music of Debussy, Ravel and Dvorák coexist within Hill’s own Late Romantic idiom. The Ninth, with its touches of Iberian colour, Impressionist passages and Czech harmonies show Hill as a musical citizen of the world.

In Donizetti’s opera Maria Stuarda the rôles of the doomed queen and her cousin, Elizabeth I, have been taken by some of the greatest divas, from Malibran to Gruberova and Tosi to Baltsa, each revelling in the high drama of their tragically linked fates. “Contributing greatly to the success of the work, the young Maestro Riccardo Frizza revealed himself as a deep and sensitive interpreter of this score, managing to capture all the nuances of Donizetti’s music … Laura Polverelli portrayed with elegance and pride the character of Elizabeth, her furies, doubts and jealousies; Maria Pia Piscitelli was a wonderful Maria Stuarda, passionate, sorrowful, proud, dignified when sentenced to death, recalling her past sins yet conscious of her innocence.”

When the lady-killer Duke of Urbino decides to seduce Barbara, the most beautiful woman in town, at a masked ball, the scene is set for an unforgettable night. But the duke’s barber, Caramello, hands out the invitations to his working-class friends instead of the cream of society, and mistaken identities contribute another hilarious chapter to the war of the sexes. Strauss’s sparkling score for A Night in Venice enjoyed considerable success around the world. Although later arranged by Korngold, it is heard here in its original version and free from spoken dialogue.

Three Poems of Walt Whitman

This recording, the first devoted entirely to the music of Paul Fetler, features Ann Arbor poet and attorney Thomas H. Blaske as narrator in the evocative Three Poems by Walt Whitman, written to commemorate the American Bicentennial in 1976. An elegant solo violin quasi-cadenza opens the remarkable third movement, after which the narrator intones the haunting line, “Ah, from a little child, thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music....” The phrase is heard again, reflected near the close and carried as if by a distant music box, simulated by a toy piano. A labour of love, Fetler’s Violin Concerto No. 2 mixes spry energy and elegant orchestration with expressively flowing melody into an irresistible tour de force, a perfect example of the “progressive lyricism” that characterises his musical style.

New Zealand-born, American-based flautist Marya Martin enjoys an international career. She joins acclaimed American pianist Colette Valentine for this recording which brings together eight contrasting yet complementary pieces commissioned for her from leading composers whom she admires and who enthusiastically agreed to participate. ‘Undoubtedly one of the most artistically rewarding experiences in my career … I hope that they will bring as much inspiration and delight to you as they have to me,’ she notes of these Eight Visions, which range from lyrical to virtuosic, folk- and jazz-inspired to mystical and prayerful.

Completing their acclaimed survey of Tippett’s string quartets, the young British quartet which has taken his name as their own here presents the composer’s Third and Fifth String Quartets. Both are infused with Tippett’s abiding fascination with Beethoven; the former work brimming with passionate counterpoint that recalls Beethoven’s late string quartets and piano sonatas, the latter harking back to Tippett’s earlier preoccupation with dramatic sonata principles. By turns dazzling, dynamic and lyrical, these are pivotal works of 20th-century chamber music. Volume 1 is available on 8.570496.

Mendelssohn’s successor as the music director of the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and a close friend of Joachim and the Schumanns, the Danish conductor and composer Niels Wilhelm Gade melded Nordic spirit with the technique of the Germanic masters. His three violin sonatas mark important stages in his career. The light-fingered First, dedicated to Clara Schumann, the mercurial Second, dedicated to Robert Schumann, and the weighty Third with its gorgeous Romanze each display different facets of his engaging musical personality. The acclaimed Danish violinist Hasse Borup and American pianist Heather Conner here make their Naxos début.

György Ligeti’s choral and orchestral music hit the mainstream when it was featured in the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but his equally remarkable chamber works remain less well known. While indebted to his compatriot Bartók for its folk-inflected passages, Ligeti’s First Quartet, subtitled Métamorphoses nocturnes, is nonetheless a work of striking originality. The Second Quartet, composed around fifteen years later, abounds in contrasts between glacial stillness and manic activity, mechanistic pizzicatos and gentle oscillations. His early Andante and Allegro is richly expressive and easily accessible.

Sinfonia In Un Tempo, Sinfonia Per Antigenida

This fourth volume of Malipiero’s seventeen highly contrasting symphonies features the lyrical Seventh (1948), notable for an intensely eloquent slow second movement that grows in potency when subsequently repeated. With its pungent harmonies and more complex structures the Sinfonia in un tempo (1950) belongs to a very different expressive and stylistic world from the symphonies of the 1930s and 40s. Named after an ancient Theban piffero player, represented by the work’s prominent piccolo part, the Sinfonia per Antigenida (1962) is perhaps Malipiero’s most inscrutable symphony, in which angular lines and aggressive dissonances reflect a bitter, disillusioned attitude to the world.

The first German artist to win the international Naumburg Violin Award in New York, Axel Strauss was acclaimed for his recording of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words (8.570213) as ‘an excellent violinist who plays these with wit and verve’. On this disc he revels in the virtuosic and expressive opportunities offered by Pierre Rode’s 24 Caprices, which preceded those of Paganini by several years. Rode’s Violin Concertos Nos. 7, 10 and 13, performed by Friedemann Eichhorn, are also available in the 19th Century Violinist Composers series (8.570469).

A gifted composer of some 500 works, mainly songs and small piano pieces, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel has been eclipsed by the fame of her younger brother Felix Mendelssohn. Yet her sensitivity in setting the German Romantic poets she loved, principally Goethe, Heine, Geibel and von Eichendorff, warrants greater attention. Like Clara Schumann, whose songs Dorothea Craxton has also recorded for Naxos (8.570747), Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel possessed a distinct and richly powerful musical voice, by turns introspective, melancholic, delicate, lilting and serene – which deserves to be heard on its own terms.

Cantique D'Amour, Flight of Icarus, Concerto Grosso

This third volume of Naxos’s Igor Markevitch Complete Orchestral Works Edition, presents the composer’s first truly individual work, The Flight of Icarus, the tumultuous 1933 première of which Milhaud proclaimed ‘a date in the evolution of music’. The Concerto Grosso, with its daringly original harmonic language, polytonal and rhythmic ideas, and the evanescent Song of Love, which recalls both the orchestral colour and emotional detachment of Ravel, are likewise regarded as youthful masterpieces. Volumes 1 (8.570773) and 2 (8.572152) have been praised for their ‘breathtaking power’ and ‘deeply committed performances’.

Dvorák’s two piano quartets stand beside those of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Schumann as important contributions to the chamber music repertoire. Enlivened by Czech inflections, the elegant charm of the First, with its marvellous set of variations and combined scherzo-and-finale last movement, contrasts with the more serious and weighty character of the Second, where an expressive theme for cello in the slow movement and a lyrical scherzo in waltz-time lighten the prevailing mood.

Messiaen’s song cycles Trois Mélodies (1930) and Harawi (1945) were both inspired by the loss of a loved one: the Mélodies are a memorial to his mother who had died three years previously, and Harawi was written shortly after his wife Claire Delbos had begun to suffer from the long illness that would ultimately lead to her death. But far from resorting to misery, the shimmering beauty of Messiaen’s music leaves the listener with a sense of hope and transcendence.

Variations on an Irish Air

Born in Austria and active in Vienna until 1938 when he emigrated to the USA before returning to Europe after the Second World War, Kurt Roger combined traditional, even archaic musical forms, with the adventurous harmonies of late Romanticism. His Clarinet Quintet, like that of Brahms, is a beautifully conceived late work, while the Variations on an Irish Air recalls his visit to Ireland in 1939. The Piano Trio displays Roger’s Classical Viennese roots and the Piano Sonata uses Baroque, Romantic and Modern elements in inventive combination.

Buxtehude Praeludium in E Minor BuxWV142, Bach By The Waters of Babylon BWV653, Prelude and Fugue in A Minor BWV543, Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr BWV662, Widor Chorale from Organ Symphony No 7, Messiaen Dieux Parmi Nous, Litaize Prelude and Dance Fugue

Canadian-born Michael Unger is a multi-award winner, including First Prize in the 2008 Sixth International Organ Competition Musashino-Tokyo, Japan, and First and Audience Prize in the 2008 American Guild of Organists’ National Young Artists Competition. The music chosen for his début Naxos recital follows a kind of spiritual progression from death to life, beginning with a dramatic baroque depiction of death’s dance (Praeludium in E, Buxtehude), and concluding with an exuberant twentieth-century affirmation of religious incarnation (Dieu parmi nous, Messiaen). Michael Unger performs extensively, and is also a church musician, chamber musician and published composer.

Peches de Vieillesse (Sins of Old Age) Vol 5, Album for Adolescent Children

Italian pianist Alessandro Marangoni, praised by the media for his ‘beautiful legato touch and a keen sense of phrasing’, here presents the third in his series of Rossini’s Sins of Old Age with the Album for Adolescent Children. From the pious First Communion and the lilting barcarolle of The Lagoon of Venice to the exotic Moorish Prelude and Rossini’s Mendelssohnian tribute to his favourite food, Ah! The Peas!, this is indeed delectable piano music. Volumes 1 (8.570590-91) and 2 (8.570766) are also available.

Copland El Salon Mexico, Lauridsen O Magnum Mysterium, Kabalevsky Colas Breugnon Overture, Stevens Symphony in Three Movements, Grantham Southern Harmony

Under the direction of Professor Russel Mikkelson, The Ohio State University Wind Symphony is a nationally recognized ensemble devoted to the preparation and performance of the finest traditional and contemporary music for band. On this disc from Naxos’s popular Wind Band Classics series, they present a wide-ranging program with global connections, from the overture to Russian composer Kabalevsky’s opera about a Breton master carpenter, Colas Breugnon, to Aaron Copland’s El salón México which takes us ‘south of the border’. Contemporary American composers are represented by Donald Grantham, whose Southern Harmony draws on an 1835 collection of American songs, Morten Lauridsen’s sublimely still O Magnum Mysterium, and John Stevens’s colorfully-scored Symphony.

Arias from The Barber of Seville, Don Giovanni, Lucia Di Lammermoor, Carmen, I Vespri Siciliani

For his Naxos début recording, the internationally acclaimed Georgian baritone Lado Ataneli has selected operatic arias by Bizet, Donizetti, Leoncavallo, Verdi, Massenet, Mozart and Rossini, which showcase what the Los Angeles Times hailed as ‘one of the healthiest, roundest, most mellifluous voices on the planet’. A sought-after interpreter of verismo rôles, Lado Ataneli has worked with conductors including Riccardo Muti, James Conlon and James Levine, sharing the stage with Plácido Domingo and other leading singers. He closes his recital with an aria by Dimitri Arakishvili, one of the founders of modern Georgian music.

Arthur Miller’s most famous play has become a key text in Western literature. This powerful recording, made for radio in 1953, was directed by Elia Kazan who premiered the play, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. It features Thomas Mitchell and Arthur Kennedy as father and son. Willy, a travelling salesman, based in New York, relentlessly chases material success. As the disappointing nature of his reality crowds in upon him, Willy and his family suffer the tragic cost of his delusions of greatness. A domestic tragedy, a cynical indictment of materialism and the American Dream, and a profoundly moving story of one man’s struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of continual adversity – Miller’s play is essential listening.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This is the final box-set in David Timson’s epic, widely acclaimed Sherlock Holmes cycle, celebrating the sesquicentenary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birth. The release brings together two previous volumes into one complete set, including such favourites as The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire and The Adventure of the Illustrious Client.

Set in the days of the British Raj, Kipling’s finest novel is the exciting and touching tale of an Irish orphan-boy who has lived free in the streets of Lahore before setting out, with a Tibetan Lama, on a spiritual quest. Kim later enrols in the Indian Service and simultaneously embarks on an espionage mission of supreme importance. A thrilling climax in the Himalayas occurs when the two quests become entangled. Kim’s search for identity is staged within one of the most magnificent and affectionate portrayals of Indian culture in literature.

René Descartes is one of the formative figures in Western philosophy, logic and mathematics. His famous statement: ‘I think, therefore I am’, has become perhaps the most famous phrase in all of philosophy. Descartes’s ground-breaking writings attempted to establish unshakeable foundations of knowledge, and set a trend for subsequent Western philosophy, which has endlessly critiqued and expanded upon his ideas. This title is read by Jonathan Oliver with Roy McMillan. It introduces the listener to the life and work of one of the greatest thinkers of all time.