In the wake of his First Symphony’s catastrophic première, Rachmaninov took a decade before commencing his Second, painstakingly revising it before conducting the triumphant première in 1908. Although haunted, like his First, by the Dies irae chant melody, the Second Symphony brims with Rachmaninov’s revitalised assurance as a composer, from its brooding opening to the vigorous grandeur of its conclusion. Eric Carmen borrowed the third movement’s poignant theme for his popular song 'Never Gonna Fall In Love Again', a tribute to the enduring power of Rachmaninov’s Romantic genius.

Shortly after completing his breathtaking Fifth Symphony, Beethoven composed incidental music for Goethe’s drama, Egmont. While the Overture is well known, the remaining movements deserve no less attention as they chart the tragic course of Count Egmont’s rebellion against the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands and his ill-fated love for Clara, whose suicide Beethoven movingly portrays. Two Marches, composed at around the same time, and his concert aria Ah! perfido, written a decade earlier, complement one of Beethoven’s most effective theatrical scores.

A Holocaust Survivor's Inner Journey Told Through Yiddish Song

A Yiddish Winterreise is a sequence of songs from the Yiddish repertoire devised by opera singer and cantor Mark Glanville, recreating the original, Schubertian journey in a Holocaust context. The singer reflects on the life and world he has just seen destroyed as he flees the Vilna ghetto. Minor-key or modal melodies may evoke a sense of sadness, yet a deep-hearted joy, even triumph, are often equally evident.

Roy Harris made an indelible mark on American orchestral music, enlivening Old World symphonic aditions with New World individualism. Amid the background of war in Europe, he crafted his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the former dedicated to ‘the heroic and freedom-loving people of our great ally, the Union of Soviet Republics’, the latter, subtitled Gettysburg, to ‘the Armed Forces of Our Nation’. The single-movement Acceleration was later reworked within the Sixth Symphony. In each piece, Harris’s nationalistic fervour is underpinned by an abiding faith in the ability of the human spirit to triumph through adversity.

A graduate of the Juilliard School, where he earned a Doctorate in Composition, and a protégé of John Corigliano and Zubin Mehta, award-winning Avner Dorman is emerging as one of the leading composers of his generation. His music has been championed by many of the world’s finest conductors. The diverse concertos presented here combine the excitement and spontaneity associated with jazz, rock or ethnic music within an engaging neo-baroque idiom. Dorman writes: ‘I have always loved baroque music… the clear rhythms, the strong reliance on the bass, and the extreme contrasts.’ Avner Dorman’s piano music is available on Naxos 8579001.

Joseph Martin Kraus was an innovative 18th-century composer, acclaimed by Haydn as one of the only two geniuses he knew (Mozart was the other). Small wonder that intense interest has been ignited by his forward-looking music, especially the epic six act opera (a prologue and five acts) Aeneas in Carthage, a retelling of the famous story of Dido and Aeneas. Originally intended for the inauguration of the new opera house in Stockholm, the première was delayed for ten years until 1791 allowing Kraus to refine his titanic score into a true magnum opus.

Ravel Serenade Grotesque, Stravinsky Les Cinq Doigts

“Igor Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Pétrouchka is a musically challenging and unusually difficult score which has to intimidate any pianist in his right mind. Every few years the stereo LP era has engendered a performance of this blockbuster, each deficient in some important aspect… Thanks to Idil Biret, all of these recordings are obsolete. I cannot do enough justice to her command of the music and its technical hurdles, nor to the effect of hearing Stravinsky’s arrangement played with such comprehensive mastery…This performance is not only the highlight of the disc; it is one of the landmarks of recorded music and belongs on anyone’s list of Great Recordings.” FANFARE MAGAZINE – USA 1977

“Gaspard de la nuit, one of the great landmarks of early 20th Century music, is wonderfully revealed in Idil Biret’s visionary performance on Finnadar…The Pétrouchka scenes are the high-water mark of pianism in Stravinsky’s work, and they are brilliantly played here in a performance that rivals the drama and color of the orchestra original.” STEREO REVIEW – USA 1977 “Talent is what Idil Biret has in prodigious measure. The Turkish pianist made that clear from the start in her recital at Alice Tully Hall…In Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit the pianist had mastered the delicate spray of notes in Ondine, the grim mood of Le Gibet with its interminable oppressive B flats, and the skittering brilliance of Scarbo.” NEW YORK TIMES – USA 1973

A celebrated keyboardist and composer under the ancien régime, Claude-Bénigne Balbastre survived the French Revolution only to die in poverty a decade later. His multifaceted musical legacy continued the strong tradition of French harpsichord music while embracing the innovations of Italian music, such as those of Scarlatti, and fashionable new styles which emerged for the salon. Completely charming and tuneful, his keyboard works are well served by the stunning Keith Hill instrument chosen for this recording. Other highly acclaimed recordings featuring Elizabeth Farr are also available on Naxos.

Ghys, Servais Variations Brilliantes and Concertantes on the Theme God Save the King Op 38, Vieuxtemps, Servais Grand Duo on Themes from Myerbeer's Les Huguenots, Leonard, Servais Grand Concert Duos Nos 1-2

Adrien François Servais, dubbed the ‘Paganini of the cello’, collaborated with three of the greatest violin virtuosi of his time, the Belgians Joseph Ghys, Henry Vieuxtemps and Hubert Léonard, to create the six duets for violin and cello heard on this disc. Whether based on the British national anthem or Yankee Doodle, on music by Beethoven or Meyerbeer, or on original themes, these duets abound in virtuosic demands including double stops, harmonics, simultaneous cadenzas and astonishing passage work, generating almost orchestral textures which embody the Romantic love of display and heightened emotionalism.

The idea of arranging movements from Prokofiev’s popular ballet Romeo and Juliet for brass band and percussion is not as strange as it may first seem, since Russia boasts a great brass band tradition. The three arrangers who participated in this unique project have had a close relationship with the Eikanger-Bjørsvik Band for many years, resulting in colourful and thrilling arrangements that showcase the full range of sonorities available, particularly involving melodic percussion instruments and the expressive contrasts achievable between muted and full-voiced brass.

Concertino

Martinu was an immensely prolific and varied composer with an impressive list of orchestral compositions including six symphonies and five piano concertos. The three works for piano and orchestra on this disc span twenty years of the Czech composer’s peripatetic career, from the Concertino (Paris, 1938) to the Third Piano Concerto (New York, 1948) and the Fifth Piano Concerto (Schönenberg-Pratteln, Switzerland 1958). As with his complete solo piano music, also available on Naxos, Martinu’s immediately recognisable style here combines shimmering virtuosity and impressionistic effects, motoric rhythms and pristine harmonies.

Robert Barto’s recordings for Naxos of the lute music of Silvius Leopold Weiss have been acclaimed as ‘the most eloquent of them all, and this comprehensive series is a tribute to his skill and involvement’ (MusicWeb International). On this tenth volume he presents two sonatas, No. 28 ‘Le fameux Corsaire’ and No. 40, as well as the moving Tombeau sur la mort de M. Comte de Logy. While the identity of ‘the famous pirate’ commemorated in the former remains unknown, Count Johann Anton Logy von Losinthal was hailed in his lifetime as ‘the Prince of the Lute’.

Variaciones Concertantes

Alberto Ginastera’s dazzling Glosses on Themes of Pablo Casals, heard here in both its original version for string quintet and string orchestra and its later fully-orchestrated version, pays tribute to his close friend, the legendary cellist (and composer) on the occasion of the centenary of Casals’s birth. The Variaciones concertantes places a variety of instruments in the limelight with featured solos, culminating in a virtuosic malambo, the archetypical gaucho ‘jousting’ dance whose vertiginous motion engenders frenetic enthusiasm among both participants and onlookers.

Until well into the 19th century, Italian instrumental music remained overshadowed by opera. However, a number of composers born around the middle of the century wrote excellent suites for clarinet and piano which brokered a ‘compromise between tradition and modernity’. Allessandro Longo’s Suite imbues Classical form with ‘a restless, fantastic, tender, passionate but never tormented or morbid Romanticism’, while that of Antonio Scontrino adds a dash of Debussian Impressionism. Guiseppe Frugatta’s splendid Suite paints a wide-ranging emotional soundscape rich in late Romantic infl uences; that of Busoni frames a lyrical Elegia with virtuosic outer movements.

Les Ruses d'Amour Ballet

Glazunov’s ballet Les Ruses d’amour (also known as The Trial of Damis), is a charming choreographic realization of the French rococo, with a strong element of pastiche. Although the music is thoroughly Russian in its orchestral colouring and language, Glazunov makes imaginative use of earlier French dance melodies, and the score was praised by his former teacher Rimsky-Korsakov for its ‘unusual mastery of writing and extremely pictorial beauty’. The scenario concerns a duchess’s daughter, Isabella, who tests the Marquis Damis’s love by disguising herself as a maid servant.

Based on Victor Hugo’s most sensational play, Lucrèce Borgia, a scandalous tale of murder, torture, incest, homosexuality, drunkenness and orgies, Donizetti’s opera is one of the great masterpieces of Italian bel canto repertoire. While omitting some of its more excessive elements, the libretto by Felice Romani inspired Donizetti to compose superb arias, duets, ensembles and choruses, bringing each act to a stirring conclusion. Brimming with high drama and pathos, this production stars Greek diva Dimitra Theodossiou in the infamous title rôle, praised for her stupendous acting and singing as England’s Queen Elizabeth I in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux (Naxos CD 866022223 / DVD 2110232).

Sarajevo, in the 1990s, is a hellish place. The ongoing war devours human life, tears families apart and transforms even banal routines, such as acquiring water, into life-threatening expeditions. Day after day, a cellist stations himself in the midst of the devastation, defying the ever-present snipers to play tributes to victims of a massacre. Steven Galloway constructs his extraordinary novel around the true story of a cellist’s resistance in the midst of war-torn Sarajevo. Against this, Galloway touchingly describes three ordinary townspeople and their efforts to retain their humanity, sanity and autonomy as war takes hold of their lives. This bestselling novel is immediate, vivid and deeply affecting on audiobook, fully immersing the listener in the havoc of war.

Here is an illuminating overture to the defining work of French modernism and one of the major classics of the 20th century. Proust’s epic examination of the subtleties of human existence in the modern world is a gargantuan composition, spanning seven volumes. Neville Jason, the internationally acclaimed reader of the extended abridgement of Remembrance of Things Past, produces this useful introduction, bringing clarity to the intricacy of Proust’s meditations, and enabling the listener to appreciate their perceptiveness afresh. Jason highlights the key passages, introducing them succinctly, so that listeners gain an understanding of the main characters, themes and plot, as well as an appreciation for the depth and beauty of this great work.

Little Nell and her grandfather live a contented life, enjoying each other’s companionship and the delights of their wonderful shop of curiosities. Overshadowing their happiness, however, are money woes and the mean and voracious intents of their landlord – the repulsive dwarf Quilp. Financial ruin looms and Quilp is hot on their tail as they flee. Full of the stark contrasts of youth and old age, beauty and deformity, goodness and malevolence, this Dickens classic resembles a fairy story. But, can goodness prevail in this realistic setting of Victorian England? Published first in serial form, The Old Curiosity Shop was an instant sensation, gripping a rapt Victorian public who were desperate to learn the fate of the beloved Little Nell. Dickens’ heart-warming classic is fully realised here through Anton Lesser’s stylish and elegant storytelling.

Following his gritty experiences in the trenches of the First World War, the bold and dashing hero, Captain Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond, does derring-do in saving a lady from a cartel of ruthless international criminals. Bulldog Drummond is a hugely popular character, belonging to the tradition of debonair action heroes from The Saint through to James Bond. Working outside of the law, Bulldog uses his charm to worm his way out of scrapes, and his wit and instincts to fight criminals in this rip-roaring adventure story. Full of excitement, humour and unexpected twists, the Bulldog Drummond stories have become well-loved classics of this genre. Naxos AudioBooks makes these popular stories available for the first time ever on audiobook.