With this new recording, JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic continue their revelatory exploration of Corigliano’s highly engaging and imaginative symphonic music. The Phantasmagoria Suite draws material from his immense opera The Ghosts of Versailles, with subliminal quotes from Mozart, Rossini and Wagner. Music from his third fi lm score, The Red Violin, provided elements which Corigliano elaborates in the Violin Concerto, its opening Chaconne being described by the composer as ‘a passionate romantic essay’ which he has complemented with an effervescent Scherzo, an intensely emotional Andante and a racing, rollicking Finale. Also available by Corigliano with the same performers: the Grammy-winning Mr. Tambourine Man (8559331).

Composed in 1943, Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony provoked hostility against its melancholy mood from the Soviet musical establishment, who felt the Red Army’s recent victories against the Nazis called for something more triumphant. Regarded by Shostakovich’s friend Isaak Glikman as ‘his most tragic work’, the Eighth Symphony brings into confl ict poignant lament with music of brutal intensity, contrasts bitter jesting with grim drama, yet ultimately seems to reach out for hope in an uncertain world. Vasily Petrenko’s acclaimed interpretations of Shostakovich’s Symphonies No. 11 (8572082) and Nos 5 and 9 (8572167) are also available.

Marin Alsop’s recording of Dvořák’s New World Symphony (8570714) was awarded 4 stars by The Sunday Times, while her ‘superb account’ of the Symphonic Variations made the disc ‘doubly recommendable’ (Gramophone). The influence of his mentor Brahms is evident in Dvořák’s powerful Seventh Symphony, its sombre mood lightened by the Scherzo’s serene trio and triumphantly transfigured in the Finale. Many regard his Eighth Symphony, with its alternating major and minor keys, dramatic contrasts and Bohemian lyricism, as superior to his more popular Ninth.

Johann Sebastian Bach was an absolute master of all the musical forms of his time except opera, which he never had the opportunity to compose. Yet in his sacred vocal and choral music he fully assimilated the expressive potential of secular Baroque vocal music with his abiding respect for the music, both sacred and profane, of his predecessors. This disc, a representative selection of his sacred music, will appeal both to the experienced music lover and to those just beginning to discover Bach’s immortal music.

Praised by Gramophone for the ‘deep feeling’ of its playing on Volume 1 (8570001) and hailed for ‘what promises to be an outstanding set’ (Vol. 2, 8570002), the New Zealand String Quartet here presents Mendelssohn’s first essay in the form, a strikingly accomplished work by a fourteen-year-old, alongside the composer’s favourite among his quartets, the D major, Op. 44, No. 1, with its suave Minuet and particularly expressive Andante. In the Op. 81 Theme and Variations and Scherzo from the last year of his life melancholy and magic meet in typical Mendelssohnian manner.

Mozart Camargo Guarnieri’s Six Piano Concertos are landmarks of this genre in Brazil, rivaled only by the concertos of Villa-Lobos. In their breadth, variety, energy and lyrical beauty, however, these concertos have no equivalent in Brazil. They offer a complete panorama of Guarnieri’s stylistic evolution and display some of his most individual traits. The Piano Concertos Nos 4, 5 and 6 display a number of avant-garde features that are fundamentally different from the more nationalistic vocabulary that informed the earlier three piano concertos (8557666).

Pecadilloes, Refractions

Paul Schoenfield’s music attracts listeners with its combination of exuberance and seriousness, familiarity and originality, lightness and depth, often with sly twists. Six British Folk Songs was written in 1985 as a tribute to the cellist Jacqueline du Pré. Each of the six Peccadilloes is based on a particular ‘bad taste’ motif, which the composer invites us to enjoy with ‘the same sort of guilt and pleasure that accompany one while eating a large chocolate sundae’. Refractions, a wonderful addition to the chamber repertoire, is based on music from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

Dedicated to the memory of Lady Evelyn Barbirolli, widow of Sir John Barbirolli and a noted oboist, this disc brings together three of Alan Hovhaness’s most fascinating scores. His Symphony No. 7 Nanga Parvat depicts the sublime topography and sounds of village life near that majestic Kashmiri mountain. Hovhaness was inspired, in his own words, by the ‘wild fierceness of volcanic earthquake- and avalanche-shaken mountains’ when composing his Symphony No. 14 Ararat, while the bells of the thousand and one cathedrals of the ruined Armenian city, Ani, resound in the Symphony No. 23.

3 Impromptus, 3 Divertimentos, Ritmes, Elegia to Ravel, Divagacion, Sonatine for Yvette, Sketch, Recondita Armonia for Piano and String Orchestra

Xavier Montsalvatge was one of the most important composers to emerge from Catalonia during the 20th century. A great lover of dance music, Latin American and jazz rhythms, his fascination with the sparkling music of Ravel and Les Six, particularly Milhaud, are evident in his own delicately filigreed piano works. In Recóndita Armonía for piano and string orchestra the interplay between the soloist and orchestra reveals the work’s origins as chamber music. By turns vivacious and lyrical, it abounds in broad Romantic melodies and spritely energy.

Theme and Variations, Akrostichon No 2

Anton Rubinstein remains a towering figure in the history of Russian music. During his lifetime he was regarded as perhaps the only pianist worthy to be compared with Liszt, and also enjoyed an international reputation as a composer. Despite his prolific output, much of his music remains ignored today. Inspired by Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, the epic Theme and Variations is one of his major solo piano works. In contrast, the intimate Deuxième Akrostichon comprises five salon pieces that display Rubinstein’s natural gift for shaping long, lyrical lines.

Composed in 1798, a few years after he settled in Vienna, Beethoven’s Gassenhauer (‘popular song’) Trio gained this nickname from its set of variations on Pria ch’io l’impegno from Weigl’s comic opera Il Corsaro. It opens with a finely crafted sonata-form Allegro con brio, followed by an Adagio based on his own Piano Sonata Op. 49, No. 2. The Clarinet Trio Op. 38, published in 1803, is Beethoven’s own stylish transcription of his extraordinarily popular Septet Op. 20 (1799).

Don Perlimplin, Ballet, Comptines

This disc features piano works composed by Frederic Mompou between 1944 and 1955, not long after Mompou’s return to Barcelona following a twenty-year stay in Paris. They remained unpublished during his lifetime and are not included in the complete works that acclaimed Spanish pianist Jordi Masó has already recorded for Naxos. The original piano version of the ballet Don Perlimplín was only published in 2007. Ballet is a set of twelve short musical epigrams for piano: this is music of great concision. These and the other shorter works here receive their world première recordings.

Fantasia appassionata, Ballade et Polonaise, Fantaisie Caprice, Greeting to America

Vieuxtemps was a towering figure in the long line of master 19th-century violinist-composers, from Viotti, Rode, Bériot and Paganini to Wieniawski, Kreisler and Ysaÿe, and one of the first to use the full Romantic orchestral palette in the composition of works with soloist. Composed during his Russian sojourn, the ornate and virtuosic Fantasie Appassionata reaches a fast a furious conclusion, as does the wistful yet dignified Ballade and Polonaise. Yankee Doodle and The Star-Spangled Banner are quoted to great effect in Greetings to America.

Mahler wrote a single movement for piano quartet in A minor (apparently the first movement of a projected four-movement opus) while a student at the Vienna Conservatory, probably late in 1876 when he was 16 years old. As Mahler put it in 1893 ‘in the end I sent it to Moscow for a competition and it got lost’. But in fact it was found among the effects of his widow Alma after her death in 1964, in a folder labelled ‘early compositions’. Weighty, four-square, thicklyscored, discursive, impassioned, Franck’s Piano Quintet seems to transgress against every one of what one usually thinks of as the conventional ‘Gallic’ virtues: deftness, lightness of texture, epigrammaticism, objectivity, elegance, wit. Yet even such a quintessentially ‘Gallic’ composer as Debussy could respond to Franck’s idealism and purity of aims, the intense, irresistible sincerity that has won Franck’s late work a devoted audience for over a century.

Lorenzo il Magnifico, Psaume

The two vocal works featured on this disc encompass virtually the entire span of Markevitch’s compositional life, and the whole range of his style, from the gripping immediacy of Psaume, written at the age of 21, to the polished sophistication of Lorenzo The Magnificent, written a bare decade later yet almost marking the close of his brief output of original creative work. This work is thus (apart from the remarkable orchestration amounting virtually to a recomposition of Bach’s A Musical Offering of 1949-50) Markevitch’s adieu as composer to the colours of the orchestra.

Jacob, Ireland, Arnold, Delius, Berkeley

The viola repertoire grew hugely during the 20th century, due in no small part to the pioneering efforts of the great soloist Lionel Tertis, whose own performing part for his viola transcription of Ireland’s Cello Sonata was consulted for this recording, while the transcription of Delius’s masterful Cello Sonata was made by the present violist, Martin Outram. Gordon Jacob’s special affection for the viola shines through in his melodious sonata, while Malcolm Arnold’s Viola Sonata is quirky and highly original, and Lennox Berkeley’s Viola Sonata achieves a brilliant and witty finale.

Fantasia on Themes of Rossini, Passioni Amorose, Gran Duetto No 2, Concerto for Two Double Basses

These works for two double basses by Giovanni Bottesini date from his student days at the Milan Conservatorium. The delightful Fantasia on themes of Rossini features an opening Tarantella, a lyrical middle section and a stormy finale. Passioni Amorose, in three movements like the rhapsodic and pyrotechnically brilliant Concerto a Due Contrabbassi, begins with a light-hearted Allegro, followed by a lyrical Andante and a rondo Allegretto. The second of the Tre Grandi Duetti is recorded here in the original version for two three-stringed instruments.

Symphonic Minutes, Suite in F Sharp Minor

Erno Dohnányi had a long career as an important composer, pianist and teacher. Deeply indebted to the Germanic Romantic tradition, the works on this disc showcase his love of scintillating orchestral tone-colour – notably of brass, wind and percussion – and his fascination with Classical forms such as the variation. His Variations on a Nursery Song traverses several musical styles in a tour de force of good-humoured virtuosity, while the Symphonic Minutes and the Suite in F sharp minor cultivate a lush, romantic mood with characteristic dashes of suavity. 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of his death.

Danzas Espanolas

Enrique Granados performed in Spain, France and New York collaborating with many of the leading artists of his day. His first masterpiece was the collection of 12 Danzas españolas, refined and delicate evocations of dances, musical styles and places which gained high praise by composers as diverse as Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Grieg and Cui. By turns gallant, flirtatious, vivacious and hypnotic, they are as fresh as his poetic Improvisation on the Valencian Jota, heard here in a unique transcription from a piano roll recording made by Granados himself.

Metamorphic Variations

Scored for a large orchestra, including an extensive percussion section, Sir Arthur Bliss’s Metamorphic Variations dates from the end of his creative life. Inspired by the triptych Tantris painted by Bliss’s long-time friend, the late George Dannatt, it is a work of extremes, of enormous power, passion and violence balanced by gentleness, whimsy and delicacy. Meditations on a Theme by John Blow is one of Bliss’s most eloquent and personal scores, a private tribute to a generation cut down in its youth, including his own brother, during World War I.

Rarities, Fragments, Alternative Versions

The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. This final volume in Naxos’s acclaimed edition includes a number of fragmentary works, some completed by Pater Reinhard van Hoorickx. This last volume in Naxos’s acclaimed edition includes songs which Schubert intended to be accompanied by instruments other than the piano, and fragments and drafts for songs which are heard sometimes exactly as they have come down to us or in subsequent completions. Also included are alternative versions and arrangements of previously recorded songs.

Symphony No 3, Death of Manfred, Suite No 2

Naxos’s acclaimed survey of Luis de Freitas Branco’s orchestral works continues with his magisterial Third Symphony, which, although composed in 1944, revels in Romantic melodrama and luminous orchestral sonorities. The brooding, agitated atmosphere of his tone poem The Death of Manfred for strings contrasts with the expansive Suite Alentejana No 2, with its evocations of the rural landscape, folklore and village life of the Alentejo region south-east of Lisbon where the composer owned a large estate and composed many of his works.

Dowland A Fancy, Fantasia, Lachrimae Pavan, Regondi Introduction and Caprice, Jose Sonata, D'Angelo Duo Canzoni Lidie Nos 1-2, Coste Departure and Return Dramatic Fantasy Op 31

Winner of the 2009 Guitar Foundation of America’s International Concert Artist Competition, French guitarist Florian Larousse presents a wide-ranging selection of music encompassing transcriptions of Renaissance lute works by John Dowland, compositions by 19th-century masters Giulio Regondi and Napoléon Coste, Antonio José’s post-romantic Sonata (1933) and a vividly progressive 20th-century composition, Nuccio d’Angelo’s Due Canzoni Lidie. Praised for the subtlety and clarity of his playing, the Paris Conservatory student is set for an international career.

Ravel La Valse, Debussy Images Book 2 Bells Through The Leaves, Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut, Goldfish, Rachmaninov Piano Sonata No 2 in B Flat Minor Op 36, Stravinsky Three Movements from Petrushka, Mateos Orion, Scarlatti Sonata in E Major '

A student at the National Music Academy in Ukraine, Antonii Baryshevskyi has been a prize-winner at 14 national and international piano competitions. He has performed as a soloist and with orchestras across Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Serbia, Poland, Germany, Spain and the USA, and has made recordings, radio and TV appearances for Ukrainian and Serbian Radio-Television. This recital showcases his mastery of the piano repertoire from Scarlatti to Stravinsky, and includes an exciting new work, Orión, by the young Andalusian composer Daniel Mateos.

Dulcinea is a cantata-fantasy in ten scenes, full of contrasts, exuberant rhythms and soaring lyricism. The composer uses a richly varied palette of orchestral colours to create the different scenes, beginning in spectacular fashion with the choral movement Molinos de viento (Windmills). The inimitable knight errant Don Quixote and his companion Sancho Panza each sing of their loves, the imaginary Dulcinea and the devoted Teresa, both of whom appear to their lovers. Paloma’s vivid hymn to love and freedom is superbly realized in this splendid recording.

Meyerbeer created his operas as vast, elaborate woven tapestries – showered with detail and colour – the result of years of painstaking work. This landmark recording of The Crusader in Egypt was made in January 2007 during a performance starring American male soprano Michael Maniaci and a cast of renowned Italian singers at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, where this spectacular grand opera was premièred in 1824. One of 19th-century opera’s long-forgotten major masterpieces, Il Crociato was composed at the close of Meyerbeer’s Italian phase shortly before he embarked upon his triumphant career in Paris.

Using a new edition based on Rossini’s autograph manuscript and other contemporaneous sources, this recording of The Italian Girl in Algiers was made at a jubilee performance of the XXth Rossini in Wildbad Festival in 2008. For his tenth opera, the already-celebrated 21-year-old Rossini wanted ‘a humorous libretto full of spectacle’. This spirited opera, completed in barely a month, scored an immediate hit and its manic atmosphere of ‘organized, total lunacy’, as Stendhal put it, has ensured its enduring popularity.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Variations, Long Long Ago, The Happy Farmer, Hunter's Chorus, The Two Grenadiers, Boccherini Minuet, Handel Bourree, Lully Gavotte, Beethoven Minuet in G, Bach Minuets Nos 1-3, Schumann The Happy Farmer, Gossec Gavotte, Bach M

Bach Minuets in G Major BWV Anh 114, G minor BWV Anh 115, Gavotte in G Minor from Overture in G Minor BWV822, Gavottes Nos 1-2 from Orchestral Suite in D BWV1068, Bourree from Cello Suite No 3 BWV1009, Dvorak Humoresque, Becker Gavotte, Martini Gavotte

Brahms Lullaby Op 49 No 4, Vivaldi Violin Concerto in A Minor Op 3 No 6 RV356 1st movement, Bach Concerto for Two Violins BWV1043 1st movement, Seitz Violin Concerto No 2 Op 13, Violin Concerto No 5 Op 22, Schubert Lullaby D498

Bach Gavottes Nos 1-2 from Cello Suite No 6 BWV1012, Concerto for Two Violins BWV1043 1st movement 'Vivace', Vivaldi Violin Concerto in G Minor Op 12 No 1 RV317, Violin Concerto in A Minor Op 3 No 6 RV356 'largo', Veracini Giga from Sonata in D Minor Op 2

Corelli arr Suzuki La Folia Op 5 No 12, Handel Sonata No 3 in F Major, Rameau Gavottes Nos 1-2, Handel Sonata No 4 in D Major

Mozart Minuet from String Quartet K421, Corelli Courante from Concerto Grosso in F Major Op 6 No 9, Violin Sonata No 1 in D Major Op 5 'Allegro', Handel Sonata No 1 in A Major, Bach Violin Concerto No 1 in A Minor BWV1041, Gigue from Cello Suite No 1 in G

Bach Allegro from Violin Sonata in E Minor BWV1023, Largo from Violin Sonata No 3 in C Major BWV1005, Eccles Sonata in G Minor, Pagnani Largo Espressivo, Gretry Tambourin from Aspasie, Veracini Concerto-Sonata in E Minor

Hollywood actor Michael Sheen reads one of the most famous poems in the English language, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', in this collection, which is part of the Naxos AudioBooks Great Poets series. Radical and daring, Coleridge worked with Wordsworth to transform poetry and bring it closer to the people. Original, atmospheric and pensive, the power of Coleridge’s plain-spoken poetry inspired the tradition of Romantic poetry that sprung up in his wake. This popular anthology also contains Coleridge’s other major narrative poem 'Christabel', as well as 'Kubla Khan' and 'The Lime-Tree Bower My Prison'. A must for English students and teachers!

Here is a fine selection of poetry from the great innovator of the dramatic monologue:  Robert Browning. Imbued with psychological penetration, lively wit, and colloquial exuberance which were hitherto alien to Victorian poetry, Browning’s poetry was remarkable for its time. His expert mimicry of voices from across the breadth of human nature makes for entertaining listening, and the characters that he depicts, such as the notoriously creepy and possessive Duke, are utterly fascinating. The theatrical talents of David Timson bring Browning’s verse to life and this popular anthology stands out as an exceptional addition to Naxos Audiobooks' growing ‘The Great Poets’ series. The collection includes such favourites as 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin', 'Home Thoughts from Abroad', 'My Last Duchess', 'Pippa’s Song' and many others.

In 2010, the 50th anniversary of the first publication of Venice is celebrated – one of the finest travel books on the world’s most famous tourist destination! This book has been slightly updated without disturbing its period flavour, and is being celebrated by Faber, the book publisher. In the intervening years, Jan Morris has proved to be one of the finest observers of history seen through contemporary eyes, with a string of superbly written books, including the trilogy on the British Empire. Venice is perhaps Jan’s supreme achievement though, and remains, for many, the best book on a city without compare. To be heard on the way to Venice, whilst there, and on return… Also available in an unabridged 10-CD edition (ISBN: 9789626342718).

Written at the peak of her career, Gaskell’s sorrowful tale of betrayed love is immensely affecting. For Paul Manning, one of the undeniable charms of the countryside is his beautiful yet naïve cousin Phillis. But, when Paul finds himself uncomfortably implicated in the romantic drama that unfolds between Phillis and his sophisticated colleague, country life suddenly becomes not quite the simple and artless pleasure it once was. Gaskell’s exploration of the threat posed to an uncomplicated, rustic way of life by the rapid industrialisation of the 19th century provides the backdrop to this touching tale of romance. The young English actor Joe Marsh makes his audiobook debut in a fine rendering of this gentle novel.

One of the great works of ancient philosophy, Meditations is particularly interesting as these writings were penned as private thoughts and not intended for public view. The stoic code, by which the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius lived, is here fully articulated through precious fragments of ideas, interspersed with more developed passages. These fascinating personal writings reveal the journey of self-improvement that Marcus Aurelius embarked upon, and the integral role that stoic philosophy played in steeling him for the trials of ruling an empire and mounting military campaigns. This is a truly inspiring and thought-provoking work of philosophy.

For all those captivated by the trials of Jane Eyre, Anne Brontë’s heroine Agnes Grey is the ideal counterpoint. Agnes Grey is widely considered to be the best record of the precarious position of the governess in Victorian society, and the insolence, neglect and dependence that the gentle Agnes is forced to endure is conveyed with great feeling. Brontë’s account of Agnes’s journey to find love, happiness and independence within the constraints of Victorian society is well-known and loved for its emotional subtlety and its incisive social scrutiny.