Piazz�lla: Tango Distinto

�A swinging, sultry collection of arrangements of the Tango King's music showcasing the exception talent of Greek trombonist Achilles Liarmakopoulos.� --BBC Music Magazine, March 2012 ****

"Piazzolla�s music appears in a variety of arrangements, but this is claimed as the first recording with a trombone as the constant element. I don�t recall having encountered the young Greek trombonist Achille Liarmakopoulos before, but he�s a fine exponent of the music, in combination with a variety of other instruments. You probably already know if you like Piazzolla�s music�and it�s very hard to dislike. If you don�t, this is as good a way as any to get to know it�" --MusicWeb International, May 2011

Legendary tango performer and composer Astor Piazzolla gained experience of jazz in New York and classical form and technique through studies with Alberto Ginastera. His work lends itself perfectly to arrangement for all kinds of ensemble, and this is the first recording with solo trombone. These popular pieces showcase the stunning playing of multi-award winning soloist Achilles Liarmakopoulos in a variety of moods, including the famous Oblivion, and Le Grand Tango, a virtuoso show-stopper originally written for cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

Aho: Symphonic Dances 'Hommage � Uuno Klami', Symphony No. 11

�a superb coupling of two strongly communicative contemporary works�which demonstrate Aho�s comprehensive mastery of rhythm, timbre and drama. Again, the performance is a definitive one and BIS's engineering breathtaking in its realism.� --Gramophone, July 2004

Gramophone Magazine
Editor's Choice - July 2004

�Aho's Symphonic Dances (2001) bear the subtitle 'Hommage � Uuno Klami' � and therein lies the clue to the work's genesis. Klami (1900- 1961), one of the leading Finnish composers of the last century, had high hopes for his largescale, Kalevala-inspired ballet Pyr�rteit�, but by the time of his death had managed to orchestrate only the second of its three acts. Aho orchestrated Act 1 in 1988. During 2000, no material having come to light for the final act, he embarked on completing Klami's magnumopus, bolstered by the prospect of a production at the Finnish National Ballet. In the event, that belated premiere never materialised, and it was left to Osmo V�nsk� and the Lahti SO to champion Aho's 'Third Act' in the concert hall. A thoroughly approachable, 27-minute creation of exhilarating drive and colour, its four movements take their names from Klami's original synopsis. It's stunningly well served here by artists and production crew alike.

Symphony No 11 is almost as rewarding. It grew out of a commission for an orchestral work involving the Kroumata Percussion Ensemble, and is cast in three movements, the last of which distils a wondrous stillness and inner calm. It also serves as a perfect foil to the first two movements, both of which demonstrate Aho's comprehensive mastery of rhythm, timbre and drama. Again, the performance is a definitive one and BIS's engineering breathtaking in its realism.� --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Var�se: Ameriques, Arcana, Deserts, Ionisation

The whole of Var�se�s surviving output can be comfortably accommodated on a pair of CDs, as it is in Riccardo Chailly�s superlative survey on Decca, but Pierre Boulez�s single disc concentrates on the two orchestral works that Var�se wrote in the years after he emigrated to the United States in 1915, Am�riques and Arcana. Boulez is totally in his element in music like this, observing every teeming detail, controlling the massive up-wellings of sound with maximum assurance, and in the Chicago Symphony he has an orchestra that has all the virtuosity and panache to deliver it at maximum voltage.

Christopher Lyndon-Gee�s account of Arcana pales by comparison; there is neither enough security or weight of tone in the playing to compete on any level. The Naxos disc also includes equally cautious performances of the three pungent ensemble pieces of the Twenties, and Var�se�s final orchestral work, D�serts, in which he made one of the first attempts at combining electronic music with live performers. The tape sounds rather faded now, and it is not surprising that Boulez opts for the version of the score omitting the pre-recorded interludes, and makes a thing of wonder out of its intricate play of colours and textures.The only puzzle is why it has taken DG more than five years to release this outstanding collection.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Andrew Clements, BBC Music Magazine

Villa-Lobos: Piano Music

'Magnificent. Easily the most sophisticated Villa-Lobos piano disc currently in the catalogue.' --International Record Review

'Marc-Andr� Hamelin�s transcendental sheen and facility bless everything he plays. He makes As tr�s Marias wink and scintillate with an inimitable verve � leaves all others standing.' --Gramophone

'Hamelin presents another hour of hair-raising (not to say spine-tingling) music in performances few could match � awesome.' --Classic CD

'An impressive disc' --BBC Music Magazine

�Enough technical dazzle to satisfy even the most virtuoso-hungry listeners� --Fanfare, USA

'Revelatory. In short, this is a must-buy release. It�s thrillingly exciting. Recommended with all possible enthusiasm' --Fanfare, USA

'Hamelin grasps [the music�s] sprawl clearly and delivers it with unrivalled perfection of pianistic mechanism. He relishes the delights of the lighter pieces with equal virtuosity' --Irish Times

�Marvellously iridescent in these magnificent interpretations � a fantastically varied succession of miniatures that will hardly fail to please� --The Magic Flute

Barber, Khachaturian: Violin Concertos

�Simonyan is a true virtuoso; his playing has a natural, unforced authority and, among other accomplishments, his clear, brilliant spiccato bowing is heard to great effect in the finales of both concertos...this is a performance [of the Barber] of notable power, Simonyan's confident presence - aided by strong support from Kristjan J�rvi and the LSO - generating considerable intensity as the climactic moments approach...All in all, a most impressive debut.� --Gramophone Magazine, February 2012

�Simonyan's intention was to bring out the qualities that embody the cultural roots of each composer: thus, he commissioned a new cadenza for Khachaturian's concerto by Artur Avanesov, to emphasise the Armenian flavour, and treated the dashing final movement of Barber's concerto in a looser manner than usual, suggestive of rustic American fiddling.� --The Independent, 20th January 2012

Casella: Triple Concerto; Ghedini: Concerto dell'Albatro

�Ghedini�s colours are so tastefully blended and applied that I found myself listening for a second time, and a third...Casella fans will want this concerto; the Ghedini is a real bonus, though.� --MusicWeb International, 9th January 2014

�a pair of radically different mid-century triple concertos...I Pomeriggi Musicali's fine live performances are scrupulously conducted by Damian Iorio... Violinist Paolo Ghidoni and cellist Pietro Bosna adopt a lyrical approach, in contrast to the more overtly virtuosic playing from pianist Emanuela Piemonti.� --The Guardian, 21st November 2013 ****

Both Alfredo Casella and Giorgio Federico Ghedini are featured in ongoing Naxos series of orchestral works, but this is the first release to couple the two of them. The pieces have much in common�not least, both are concertos using the rare combination of piano trio and orchestra, pioneered by Beethoven�but they are also beautifully contrasted. Casella wrote his Triple Concerto for his own Trio Italiano, who performed it five hundred times on three continents in less than a decade. Ghedini�s Concerto dell�albatro adds the voice of a narrator to the piano trio and orchestra, evoking, in words from Herman Melville�s sea story Moby-Dick, a remarkable encounter with an Antarctic albatross.

Arwel Hughes: Anatiomaros

"If there is a Cambrian folk aspect to any of the music on this disc it must be deeply subsumed. I do not detect any heart-on-sleeve use of traditional songs. What is clear is that this is the work of a most accomplished modern romantic-nationalist."  --Music Web International, September 2011

�sumptuously recorded...The suite for orchestra and stirring 'legend' Owain Glyndwr demand more frequent concert airings.� Classical Music, 10th September 2011 ****

Owain Arwel Hughes conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a tribute to his father Arwel Hughes, the Welsh composer and radio broadcaster.

A student of Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst among others, Hughes early on began to work for the BBC and had limited opportunity to compose. This CD brings together most of his oeuvre for orchestra, from Anatiomaros (1943) to the 'legend' Owain Glyndwr (1979).

As a broadcaster and conductor he was an untiring champion of his fellow Welsh composers.

Tippett: String Quartets Nos. 1-4

�The Britten Quartet are incisive and assured in negotiating the diffuse aesthetic scope of Tippett's fascinating String Quartets. If only they had more of his humanity and sense of fun.� --BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 ***

Sir Michael Tippett (1905-1998) was a leading figure in British contemporary music of the 20-th century. His 4 string quartets span his entire creative life, and show him as an extremely skilful and innovative composer. In his String Quartets, the most challenging and complicated musical form, Tippett draws inspiration from the late quartets of Beethoven, particularly in his fugal writing, and the intricate and complex textures of the 4 voices. 

 

The Britten Quartet already showed their special qualities in British 20th century music, their recording of the String Quartets of Benjamin Britten (Brilliant Classics 9168) won high praise.

Sir Michael Tippett (1905�98) wrote a total of seven string quartets, along with two early efforts that he himself suppressed, deeming the works too immature. Like the symphonies, the Quartets Nos. 1� 4, heard on this disc, span Tippett�s development as a composer, and reveal his deep feeling and skill for contrapuntal music. Drawing particular inspiration from Beethoven, who Tippett held a great admiration for, the quartets display a rigorous intellectual logic and stylistic features that bear the hallmarks of Beethoven�s late style. In String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3, for example, Tippett places particular prominence on fugal writing, Nos. 1 and 2 display hints of sonata form, while String Quartet No.4 is a multi-movement work -� four movements played without a break.

Yet despite Tippett�s sources of inspiration, these works are also testament to his fundamentally innovative approach to composition, heard in the complex and intricate combinations of rhythms, structural experimentation and assured manipulation of string sonorities.

Peteris Vasks: Flute Concerto

Renowned for its luminosity and searing expressiveness, the music of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks frequently explores the relationship between nature and humanity, not least in the Flute Concerto (written for Michael Faust), which is among the most expansive of Vasks� orchestral works. Abstract qualities in the Sonata contrast with the deftly defined lyrical and rhythmic elements of Aria e danza, while Landscape with Birds exploits the entirety of the flute�s timbral range.

�Vasks deserves to be better known. His colourful, dramatic music is well-served here by powerful orchestral work and sensitive playing by the soloists.� --BBC Music Magazine, Christmas Issue 2013 *****

�Flute Concerto proves that Vasks not only is one of the most prominent figures in the field of choral music, but also in the other classical segments (from instrumental concerts to chamber music and so on). You discover a composer who definitely has an advantage (a gift) compared to his colleagues in terms of inventive: perhaps in this collection the �spiritual� interest of symphonic/minimalistic compositions seems distant, but the gain is to be close to a sense of accomplished forms that, in some ways, is surprising.� --Percorsi Musicali, October 2013

Piano Music by Federico Mompou

�In the hands of an imaginative pianist like Stephen Hough this other-worldly, almost eremitic [music] becomes revelatory. He catches Mompou's wistful moods to perfection� --Gramophone Magazine

�[Hough] is completely inside Mompou's fastidious, Satie-esque sound-world and understands the absorbed influences which make this music as much French as Spanish...Not even Mompou himself equalled, let alone surpassed, Hough in this repertoire.� --Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

�The music of Federico Mompou may appear at first to consist of little more than charming, delicately scented but dilettantish salon near-improvisations with marked overtones of Erik Satie; but it's significant that his earliest works (in the 1920s) are imbued with a sense of mystery and wonder.

Later he was to progress from an ingenuous lyricism (in the Songs and dances) to a profounder contemplation and mysticism, to greater harmonic and keyboard complexity ( Dialogues) and finally, in the 1946-60 Paisajes ('Landscapes'), to a more experimental, less tonal idiom. In the hands of an imaginative pianist like Stephen Hough this other-worldly quality becomes revelatory.

Hough's command of tonal nuance throughout is ultra-sensitive, he catches Mompou's wistful moods to perfection, and on the rare occasions when the music lashes out, as in Prelude No 7, he's scintillating. In the more familiar Songs and dances he's tender in the songs and crisp rhythmically in the dances. He treats the 'Testament d'Amelia' in No 8 with a good deal of flexibility, and because Mompou declared (and demonstrated in his own recordings) that 'it's all so free', he takes the fullest advantage of the marking senza rigore in No 5, which reflects Mompou's lifelong fascination with bell sounds.� --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra & Tod und Verkl�rung

�Endlessly imaginative, finely detailed and grippingly spontaneous (if not quite immaculate) readings that capture Sinopoli at white heat.� BBC Music Magazine, January 2014 *****

�Sinopoli's interpretations of these two Strauss tone poems ara magnificient and are recorded with clarity. What I find most impressive is the way Sinopoli approaches a score as if it were a brand-new document waiting to be brought to life.� --Gramophone Magazine

Nielsen: Orchestral Works

Nielsen wrote six symphonies, all of which repay attention. The best known are Symphony No. 2, �The Four Temperaments� and Symphony No. 4, �The Inextinguishable�. Symphony No. 5, written after the First World War, represents, in its two movements, the composer�s struggle to develop new and stronger rhythms and more advanced harmony. His concertos for clarinet, for flute and for violin have also found a place in standard repertoire, as has the overture taken from the opera Maskarade.

Elgar: Symphony No. 2

�Stockholm strings may not sound very full or burnished at the fuller end...but they are supreme in atmospheric pianissimos...It's typical of the thoughtful Oramo, too, that he chooses to fill the rest of the disc with tender, veiled string elegies to complement the sunset Symphony� --BBC Music Magazine, November 2013 ****

�The opening movement is propelled strongly, the Elgarian swagger is exploited well and that ghostly passage suggesting a malign presence in a garden seems particularly eerie here...Altogether a very impressive Elgar programme.� --MusicWeb International, 24th July 2013

Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Sakari Oramo

As the present principal conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Sakari Oramo has chosen works by Edward Elgar, a composer whose music he has been a fervent advocate of since his tenure at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Oramo�s commitment to Elgar has been rewarded with a medal of honour from the British Elgar Society.

Oramo has already led the RSPO through a series of high-profile projects which has recently included a very successful tour of Japan. Oramo will be making his debut performance as Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the last night of the Proms.

All three works presented here have a melancholic tinge with Symphony No. 2 being dedicated to the memory of King Edward VII, accompanied by two smaller string works: Elegy and Sospiri (�sighs�).

Barber: Cello Concerto & Sonata

�There are three hits here on one CD...[Poltera] is outstanding and invariably well-supported by the Bergen players under Litton. His high positions are effortless, as are the nasty double thirds...Poltera's duet with the oboe in the slow movement is magical...A feature of Litton's Adagio is the way it creeps in fat the start from nothing. Then it's all beautifully paced, spacious and warm. Recorded quality throughout is top-drawer in a truly winning CD.� --Gramophone, February 2013

Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice - February 2013

�Poltera meets [the Concerto's] technical demands with almost complete ease, and projects the more lyrical moments with subtle inflections of line and beautifully centred tone...Poltera and pianist Kathryn Stott bring out [the Sonata's] Brahmsian ardour and its contrasts between tranquillity and restlessness.� --BBC Music Magazine, May 2013 ****

�Christian Polt�ra is ideally suited to this music, not least because he obtains a gloriously rich and full tone from his 1675 Guarnerius cello. Kathryn Stott, faced with a very full piano part, matches the ardour of his playing...[in the Concerto] Polt�ra is a highly persuasive soloist and the accompaniment from Litton and his orchestra is first rate.� --Music Web Internacional, May 2013

Stravinsky: Complete music for piano & orchestra

With Steven Osborne as soloist, the concertante works are in exceptionally good hands...After the Capriccio's grandiose opening, Osborne's tight control of the piano's insistent, driving textures provides a firm foundation for the opening movement's unexpected humanity and charm.� --BBC Music Magazine, July 2013 ****

�Osborne and Volkov tick a major Stravinsky box� --Gramophone Magazine, August 2013

�Osborne plays all with diamantine brilliance.� Sunday Times, 19th May 2013

�Osborne manifests both his rhythmic �lan and his refined sense of tonal shading, underpinning the performances with virile energy...finding a spirited sparring-partner in the BBC Scottish Symphony under Ilan Volkov.� The Telegraph, 29th May 2013

�though they do not manage to make either [concerto] more likable, Osborne and Volkov judge them perfectly � keeping the Concerto, as well as the slightly later Capriccio, on a tight rein, and threading a lucid path through the thickets and intricacies of the Movements.� The Guardian, 30th May 2013 ****

�The outstanding work here is the Concerto for piano and wind instruments (1923-24), played by Osborne in a way that finds wit in the rhythmic quirks while lending substance to the music�s 18th-century references, so that it never sounds dry.� Financial Times, 8th June 2013 ***

Holst: The Planets; Elgar: 'Enigma' Variations

"This magnificent performance of The Planets, recorded with an opulent realism, brings to a culmination Boult's supreme understanding of this work. This account of the 'Enigma' Variations is also a classic." --Gramophone

"Nearly 80 minutes of very good quality sound serving two classic performances from the Seventies. Boult makes all The Planets shine, from a truly threatening Mars to the hushed mysticism of Neptune. His reading of Enigma shows his deep understanding and affinity for the work pointing up so many little felicities that bring these characters to life and all the emotional power of Nimrod and the Finale." --BBC Music Magazine

Glass, Rutter & Fran�aix: Harpsichord Concertos

�Typically adventurous, Naxos programmes Rutter's pastoral prettiness with Glass's insistent dancing patterns and Francaix's lissom, quirky lyricism.� --BBC Music Magazine, Christmas Issue 2013 ****

�[the Glass] makes for an understated and appealing piece, and one to which Christopher D Lewis is as responsive as he is to the other works here - sensitively accompanied by the West Side Chamber Orchestra under the attentive direction of Kevin Mallon...If the programme appeals, then there is no need to hesitate.� --Gramophone Magazine, November 2013

Attracted by a delightful fusion of early music sonorities with modern expressiveness, the three composers in this amazingly rich and varied programme build on the magnificent harpsichord concerto legacy of J. S. Bach. John Rutter�s beautiful Suite Antique is full of rich and haunting themes, with a significant solo flute part and a jazzy Waltz which is as much Brubeck as Bach. Philip Glass delivers an exciting experience of virtuoso instrumental blending and solo expressiveness, and with typical wit and elegance. Jean Fran�aix�s Concerto is terrific fun throughout.

Tippett: The complete music for piano

�This splendid double album� assembles all Tippett's music for piano whether solo of with orchestra, in performances that impressively set new standards in these often challenging works.� --BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 *****

�Most powerful of all is the mighty Concerto� the eloquence and fantasy of what is undoubtedly one of the major works of the 1950s is superbly projected in a performance which need fear no comparison with the best earlier recordings� As for the sonatas, Steven Osborne is at least the equal of Paul Crossley... in interpretative empathy, and has the advantage of superlative modern recording.� --Gramophone, December 2007

�The young Tippett � magpie and maverick � sought maximum intensity of feeling while shunning what he felt to be the sentimental fervour of Elgar, Bax and Walton. Equally abhorrent were the pastoral pieties of Vaughan Williams. Tippett took his stand with Blake and Yeats rather than Bunyan, and a Blake whose 'bow of burning gold' required something altogether less complacent than Parry's well upholstered jingoism.

The results are plain to hear in Tippett's earliest works for piano, the First Sonata and the Handel Fantasia. The slow movement of the sonata may flirt briefly with Hindemith-style counterpoint but the predominant spirit is fiery and spontaneous, with a reinvigorated romanticism embracing those aspects of popular music which Tippett believed to have 'classical' potential.
The road ahead was bumpy and he occasionally lost his way, as in the very long slow movement of the Third Sonata, aspiring to Beethovenian depth but bogged down in overly dense textures. There are also several repetitions too many in the Fourth Sonata, though the final movement's gently poetic sense of resignation more than compensates.

Most powerful of all is the mighty Concerto, starkly and confidently poised between Tippett's still richly potent earlier style and the brave new possibilities explored in its visionary central movement. This recording blends the piano in with the orchestra, acknowledging the work's symphonic attributes, and there is a certain recessed quality to the sound of the piece throughout. Nevertheless, the eloquence and fantasy of what is undoubtedly one of the major works of the 1950s is superbly projected in a performance which need fear no comparison with the best earlier recordings. As for the sonatas, Steven Osborne is at least the equal of Paul Crossley (CRD) in interpretative empathy, and has the advantage of superlative modern recording.

There's a further advantage: perceptive and lucid booklet-notes by Ian Kemp, Tippett's friend and biographer, and one of Osborne's mentors. The set is dedicated to him.� -- The Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2010

Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2

�...here is a performance warmed by musicians who clearly love this symphony. On the whole this is a very 'straight' account, Slatkin only occasionally 'point-making'...but generally his tempos seem so sympathetically chosen that the music speaks eloquently� --BBC Music Magazine, June 2010 ****

�Well-played and with a recorded sound that faithfully reproduces the distinctive blend of richness and subtlety in Rachmaninoff�s orchestration, the performance is pliable but unexaggerated, poignant and powerful...there is a genuine heart and soul to it as well.� --The Telegraph, 20th January 2010 ****

In the wake of his First Symphony�s catastrophic premi�re, Rachmaninov took a decade before commencing his Second, painstakingly revising it before conducting the triumphant premi�re 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.

This disc marks the start of a new collaborative relationship between Naxos and the Detroit SO under Leonard Slatkin..

�One could argue that no conductor today comprehends this music or frames its rugged profile more eloquently than Slatkin. This was a magnificent performance, a testament to the DSO's collective virtuosity and a ringing promise of a new chapter in its annals.� Detroit News on Slatkin�s inaugural concert as the conductor of the DSO

Poulenc: Concertos for Keyboard Instruments

My music is my self-portrait,� said Francis Poulenc of his works. The composer�s personality was as brilliant as his music, which always contains something surprising, a change of level, a contrast between the �great� and the banal and between tradition and the avantgarde. Hansj�rg Albrecht presents three concertos for keyboard instruments on his new CD of organ music; he himself takes the solo part in the concerto for organ, strings and timpani.

In the harpsichord concerto and the concerto for two pianos and orchestra, he takes on the role of the orchestra, whose part he plays on the organ. With this, he harks back to performance practices typical of the early 20th century, particularly in France and the USA, where �salon organs� were often used in private salons for small concerts, and avant-garde composers presented their new works to an audience of connoisseurs.

The value of this recording is also enhanced by the two soloists in the double piano concerto, the piano duo consisting of Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen, who have been counted among the world�s leading piano duos for many years.