Following the release of the first volume of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s splendid Shakespeare Overtures (8572500), Naxos here presents the remaining five, which were composed for large orchestra between 1933 and 1953 and create evocative symphonic impressions of the plays. As You like It paints vividly atmospheric images of the forest of Arden, while The Merchant of Venice has a compelling cinematic quality. The piping, songs and dances of Much Ado About Nothing contrast with the fervent mood of King John. The Winter’s Tale captures both the psychological drama and pastoral mood of Shakespeare’s tragicomic romance.

Following the success of their recording of Sibelius’s Night Ride and Sunrise, Belshazzar’s Feast Suite and Kuolema (8570763) ‘top-notch performances…Recommended’ (Fanfare), talented young Finnish-born Pietari Inkinen conducts the internationally acclaimed New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in poetic and sweeping performances of his compatriot’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3. This is the first volume in a splendid new Naxos series.

Using the new Polish National Chopin Edition, acclaimed pianist Eldar Nebolsin and Poland’s national orchestra conducted by the renowned Polish conductor Antoni Wit here present fresh interpretations of Chopin’s great works for piano and orchestra. The Second Piano Concerto was written before the first and completed in 1830, the year in which the composer set out for Vienna and then Paris. Chopin’s Variations on Là ci darem la mano, bear witness to his admiration for Mozart, instilled by his earliest teacher, the Bohemian Wojciech Zywny. The Grande Polonaise in E flat, Op. 22, was written in Vienna, and later augmented with the introductory Andante spianato.

In Haydn’s Masses we can hear the great composer honing the skills that would make him one of the most famous and popular composers of his time. The Great Organ Solo Mass of 1768-9 includes an important organ part that Haydn probably played himself, while the Heiligmesse of 1796 takes its nickname from his use of an old German Sanctus tune. The performances perfectly balance classical elegance, devotional intensity and rich, full-bodied tone, and should find a warm welcome in any classical collection. Absolutely wonderful.’ (Baker & Taylor CD Hotlist)

Mendelssohn’s magnificent oratorio Elijah brings to life the tumultuous times and personal drama of the Biblical prophet in a sweeping series of recitatives, arias and choruses in which the composer’s Romantic genius drew deeply from the wellsprings of Bach and Handel. In this new recording, sung in German, Jun Märkl, one of the most notable conductors of his generation, leads an outstanding cast of soloists headed by Ralf Lukas, Germany’s longest-standing radio symphony orchestra and its acclaimed choir.

Composed between The Barber of Seville (866002729) and Cinderella (866019192), Rossini’s only Neapolitan opera buffa The Newspaper was based on a highly popular romantic comedy by Carlo Goldoni, yet has languished until the publication of the new critical edition on which this recording is based. Now revealed as a delicious entertainment satirising the role of the media, it involves two young women, their lovers and fathers, who are beset by the arrival of disguised ‘Quakers’ and a Turkish masquerade – all the result of an advertisement!

In the summer of 1781 Mozart described his new home Vienna as ‘the land of the piano’. He soon set about presenting his own subscription concerts, offering the three newly-composed concertos on this disc for publication ‘either with a large orchestra or a quattro’. The latter, more intimate versions of these charming works are performed here by Robert Blocker, Dean of Music and Professor of Piano at Yale University, and the youthful Biava Quartet, winners of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and top prizes at the Premio Borciani and London International Competitions.

John Philip Sousa personified the comparative innocence and brash energy of America around the turn of the 20th century. Alongside the march that made him famous and later sparked a world-wide dance craze, The Washington Post, this disc includes excerpts from one of the earliest musicals to achieve Broadway success, El Capitan. With its origins reaching as far back as 1557, The Royal Artillery Band is one of the largest symphonic wind bands in the British Army. Keith Brion is a specialist in Sousa’s period style and has published many performing editions of The March King’s music. Naxos is now midway through this unique recording project.

The works on this disc are representative of Harold Meltzer’s unique sensibility, profound imagination and inquisitive musical mind, quickened both by the things of the world and by a wide range of music, including the works of Franco Donatoni and the Stravinsky of Agon. Brion was praised by the 2009 Pulitzer Prize jury as ‘a graceful, sensual and contemplative experience’, the ‘inexorable emotional power’ of Two Songs from Silas Marner impressed The New York Times, The Oxford Times described Sinbad as ‘a startling and deeply interesting modern work’, while The Boston Globe declared that ‘Exiles goes immediately onto this year’s must-hear-again list.’

Rodolphe Kreutzer's final three violin concertos are among his greatest achievements as a composer. While handling a Beethovenian orchestra with a craftsman's sure touch, it is the purity and depth of tone, nobility of phrasing, energetic fire and complete technical mastery required of the soloist that set these works among the most perfect examples of the French violin concerto. Professor of Violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and heard on concert stages throughout Europe, Axel Strauss has been acclaimed as ‘an excellent violinist who plays these with wit and verve’ (Limelight). Naxos plans to record all of Kreutzer’s violin concertos.

Martin Welzel, who also performs on Volumes 6 (8557338) and 8 (8570455) gaining American Record Guide’s praise as ‘authoritative’, performs on the splendid Johannes Klais Organ in Trier Cathedral. Although a Catholic, Reger nevertheless drew on the Lutheran tradition’s rich store of chorales, the inspiration for his many preludes, fantasias and other works. Whether pulling out all the stops or exploring the instrument’s more delicate colourings, Welzel demonstrates here why Max Reger is regarded as the greatest German composer of organ music since Bach.

These classic recordings from 1978 (Liszt) – previously unreleased – and 1979 (Miaskovsky, Scriabin & Rachmaninov) will be very welcomed both by lovers of great Romantic and Russian piano repertoire and the growing number of Idil Biret fans around the world. ‘Exemplary classical benchmarks…outstanding artistic potency of the highest standards of excellence.’ – Die Welt. ‘If 20th-century music were always performed like this, it would surely not suffer from the hearer-unfriendly reputation that still too often bedevils it.’ – MusicWeb USA

Pianist-composer Ferdinand Ries’s fourteen works for piano and orchestra stand among the most important from the early 19th Century. Intensely lyrical, yet with a rugged Beethovenian grandeur, Ries’s concertos are impressive. The Introduction et Rondeau Brillant was composed at the end of his long and brilliant career. Internationally acclaimed pianist Christopher Hinterhuber has been praised for ‘his lively and beautifully turned performances. Uwe Grodd and the Royal Liverpool band accompany and complement him admirably…an hour’s worth of really enjoyable music, excellent playing, an outstanding recording…a gold star winner.’ (Fanfare on Vol. 3 - 8557844). Further volumes in this acclaimed Naxos series are underway.

Domenico Scarlatti is renowned for his remarkable keyboard sonatas, some 555 of which are known. Written for performance on the various keyboard instruments of the Spanish court where he was employed for many years, they have long provided a valuable repertoire for pianists. On Volume 13 in Naxos’s highly praised and popular series, the young Chinese pianist Chu-Fang Huang, who won First Prize in the Cleveland International Piano Competition and was a finalist in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, interprets sixteen of these influencial 18th-century mini-masterpieces.

This collection of piano music is a welcome reminder of the many fascinating stylistic strands that colour George Enescu’s work. Seriously under-rated today, he exerted a powerful influence on all those who came under his spell, including Yehudi Menuhin, for whom Enescu remained ‘the greatest musician’. Pianist Matei Varga is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions, among them the Maria Canals Competition in Barcelona, the Porto International Piano Competition and the George Enescu Competition in Bucharest.

Although inspired by Brahms’s clarinet sonatas, those of Max Reger are stamped with the original thematic material, harmonic progressions, expressive dynamics and intricate phrasing that make him a distinctly 20th-century composer. The high spirited character of the first sonata contrasts with the second's introverted elegance. Reger described his third as ‘very light and friendly’. A distinguished soloists and teacher, Janet Hilton is Head of Woodwind at London’s Royal College of Music. Multiple prize-winner Jakob Fichert is an expert on Reger’s piano and chamber works.

Dazzlingly virtuosic fireworks, spirited passion and astonishing technique combine in the youthful Chinese violinist Tianwa Yang who leaves the critics grasping for superlatives whenever she plays. In this fourth volume of Naxos’s recordings of Sarasate's complete works she again teams with the orchestra founded by the legendary Spanish violinist-composer in 1879 to present two of his orchestral masterpieces, the famous Carmen Fantasy and the sadly neglected Romeo and Juliet Fantasy, as well as several other utterly delightful, and fiendishly difficult, concert pieces.

Featuring such well-known names as Ethel Smyth and Elizabeth Maconchy, as well as less familiar female composers, the works on this disc illuminate a crucial but under-explored aspect of musical life in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain. Spanning a period of more than eighty years, a variety of musical styles is here revealed, rich with distinctive voices. Clare Howick has a special interest in 20th-century British violin repertoire and plays a Stradivarius violin (1721). A student of Alexander Kelly and Malcolm Martineau at the Royal Academy of Music, Sophia Rahman has made over twenty chamber music recordings.

Remembered as the first of the great piano virtuosos, Muzio Clementi condensed his years of composition and performance into the monumental, three-volume Gradus ad Parnassum, a repository of stylistically diverse pieces designed to demonstrate utmost technical mastery of the instrument. Praised for his recordings of Rossini’s piano music for Naxos (857059091, 8570766 & 8572315), the award-winning Italian pianist Alessandro Marangoni scales the heights of Clementi’s piano studies with an easy enthusiasm that belies their extraordinary demands, bringing to life their unfailingly engaging qualities. Three further Naxos albums are planned.

Karol Mikuli was often the first to hear Chopin's new pieces and edited his complete piano works, while Adolph Gutmann was a devoted member of Chopin's intimate circle and Thomas Tellefsen later enjoyed a successful career as a piano virtuoso. Perhaps the most talented of all, Carl Filtsch, died aged only fifteen. Multiple competition prize-winner Hubert Rutkowski, the first pianist to record Chopin's friend and pupil Julian Fontana's piano pieces, here reveals a forgotten treasury of Romantic music whice, while recalling the poetry of Chopin's music also heralds the later advent of Impressionism.

From mysterious moonlit night to joyous sunlit day, this CD runs the gamut of Alfredo Casella’s huge stylistic range. Notte di maggio (A Night in May), composed in the wake of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, is Casella at his most radical, while the delightful Divertimento Scarlattiana finds him at his most relaxed, spicing up themes from Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas, in the manner of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Between them comes Casella’s Cello Concerto, its style influenced by the ‘baroque magnificence of Rome’. Volume 4 will include Casella’s Symphony No. 3.

The great Polish composer Witold Lutosławski was an important conductor of his own highly expressive music. With Chain 1 he developed a new compositional method linking contrasting musical ideas into a satisfying whole. Partita, Interlude and Chain 2 form an impressive trilogy. Fujiko Imajishi, concertmaster of the National Ballet of Canada and Esprit Orchestra, has enjoyed a long association with Toronto’s New Music Concerts. Chantefleurs et Chantefablesis a luminous, bittersweet song cycle. Canadian soprano Valdine Anderson has been acclaimed for performances ranging from Baroque to contemporary music.

Paul Salerni’s award winning opera with a libretto by Dan Gioia takes place in a classical music radio station on the last night of its operations. Its last program, ‘Opera Lover’, is hosted by Antonio Caruso, who remembers his early dreams of artistic fame as the ‘second Caruso’ and is visited by three ghosts—his dead mother, Maria Callas, and a mysterious woman. Praised for his ‘resplendent vocalism’ (American Record Guide) and his ‘lusciously sweet voice, with its ringing, perfectly-tuned high notes’ (Opera Now), the young tenor Eric Fennell sings the title role.

Based on Louisa May Alcott’s enduringly popular novel about the adventures of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy in civil-war era New England, Mark Adamo’s opera Little Women has since its 1998 première by Houston Grand Opera received more than 55 productions internationally and achieved the status of an American classic. This recording, with a superb cast expertly directed for television, vividly brings to life what New York magazine hailed as ‘a serious, ambitious, and creatively generous piece of work’ and The New York Times dubbed a ‘masterpiece’.

The Places: The tour starts in Vienna at the Christkindl Market and other Christmas scenes include the grotesque Krampus masqueraders, with St. Nicholas, in Steyr. In Switzerland we see the great monastery church at Einsiedeln and in Bavaria the Abbey Church at Ottobeuren. In Austria scenes of Salzburg and its Christmas market are followed by Christmas cribs at Steyr and in the great cathedral at Linz, ending gazing upwards at the great Christmas fresco that decorates the dome of the monastery church at Einsiedeln.
The Music: The music chosen for this tour is principally taken from the works of Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach, including excerpts from the former’s Messiah and from two organ concertos, and from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, with the carol Silent Night heard in its original setting at the little church in Oberndorf, for which it was written.

The Places: The tour of Norway takes us from the countryside between Gaupne and Sogndal to Bergen, the birthplace of Edvard Grieg, and its surrounding countryside. Trolls make their presence known, and there are views of traditional farm buildings and stave churches from the open-air museum at Maihaugen.
The Music: The music chosen for this tour of Norway is by Norwegian composers, of whom the best known is Edvard Grieg. Included is his Holberg Suite, Norwegian Dances and 'Erotikon' from his Lyric Pieces. Other composers featured are Christian Sinding, composer of the famous Rustle of Spring, and Johan Svendsen.

The Places: The tour starts at the great Augustinian foundation, Kloster Neustift (Novacella), at Brixen (Bressanone) in Southern Tyrol, with its rococo church interior and collection of late medieval paintings. This is followed by a visit to Innsbruck, the capital of the Tyrol, with its famous Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof) and rococo Wilten Basilica and Collegiate Church.
The Music: The music chosen for this tour of Brixen and Innsbruck is by Mozart and includes two symphonies, with other works. Symphony No. 40 is the second of the group of three final symphonies, written in Vienna in 1787, and Symphony No. 28 was written in Salzburg in 1773 or 1774. Other works included are overtures to the early opera Il rè pastore, to The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart’s first operatic success in Vienna, and the overture to La clemenza di Tito,written in 1791, a few months before his death.

Christmas brings out the best and worst in us, as can be seen in this evocative anthology. Among what Thomas Love Peacock calls the 'many poetical charms in the heraldings of Christmas' there are eulogies by saints and diatribes from curmudgeons. Here, Christmas is expounded by divines, sung by rustics, deplored by philosophers, made mystical in stories - and summed up in a line by the poet Elizabeth Jenkins: 'The hush, the star, the baby, people being kind again'.

M.R. James is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever writers of ghost stories. Here, we present his most famous collection of spine-tingling tales which involve a supernatural book, a picture which reveals a murderous story and a wish to meet a dead author taken literally. In each story, the narrator’s nagging curiosity leads them to confront a variety of creepy and unsettling spectres. Gripping, terrifying and atmospheric – James’s stories will have you on the edge of your seat. Classic spooky listening for Halloween!

This collection includes a selection of H.P. Lovecraft’s finest chilling tales.  Lovecraft’s most famous monster is Cthulhu, a gargantuan beast which has been lying dormant for millions of years but rises up and forces mankind to recognise its fundamental ignorance, powerlessness and insignificance. Lovecraft is an accomplished master of suspense, releasing information slowly and deliberately through fragmented first-person accounts so that the full impact of the awful truth is reserved until the end. Each of these stories masterfully plays with our fears and conjures up a mounting sense of horror, paranoia and dread.

The tale of social-climbing, arriviste Julien Sorel brilliantly captures the contradictions and hypocrisies permeating French society under the Bourbon Restoration. Using his formidable intellect, innate cunning and charm, Julien clambers his way to the top, manipulating and seducing those who have the power to give him the social status he desires. However, Julien’s idealism and Napoleonic ambitions are always simmering just below the surface, threatening to erupt and jeopardise his designs. For how long will he be able to smother his true feelings? Bill Homewood’s reading masterfully portrays the psychological tension and intrigue of this French classic.