{"title":"Celebrating Female Conductors: Alsop \u0026 Falletta","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCelebrate Women's History Month with over \u003cb\u003e50 \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003etitles conducted by two powerful women conductors,\u003cstrong\u003e Marin Alsop\u003c\/strong\u003e \u0026amp;\u003cstrong\u003e JoAnn Falletta!\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e On sale now at \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eHBDirect! \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMarin Alsop\u003c\/strong\u003e is one of the foremost conductors of our time and a powerful and inspiring voice. She is the first woman to serve as the head of major orchestras in the United States, South America, Austria, and Great Britain. A “formidable musician and a powerful communicator,” and a “conductor with a vision” (New York Times), Alsop is internationally recognized for her innovative approach to programming and audience development, for her deep commitment to education, and for championing the importance of music in the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMultiple GRAMMY-winning conductor \u003cstrong\u003eJoAnn Falletta\u003c\/strong\u003e serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center, and Conductor Laureate of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra. She was recently named one of the “Fifty Great Conductors”, past and present, by Gramophone Magazine. As Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"shopify-section\" id=\"shopify-section-template--18107431616746__blocks_hpEaLT\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"shopify-block\" id=\"shopify-block-ARk1HUVd2TGNpVktaW__ai_gen_block_00051a3_B6TAYk\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"ai-section-header-ark1huvd2tgnpvktawaigenblock00051a3b6tayk\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"ai-section-header__container-ark1huvd2tgnpvktawaigenblock00051a3b6tayk\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"ai-section-header__description-ark1huvd2tgnpvktawaigenblock00051a3b6tayk\"\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShop now before the sale ends at \u003cstrong\u003e9:00am ET, Tuesday, April 28th, 2026\u003c\/strong\u003e. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"amazing-musical-instruments","title":"Those Amazing Musical Instruments! Book","description":"\u003cp\u003eThose Amazing Musical Instruments! takes you on an exciting musical tour! In a revised edition, including access to a brand new, exclusive website, this vibrant, colorful, comprehensive and unique book is a rich exploration of orchestral instruments. Learn about the character of each instrument, how it is constructed and played, which instruments go well together, and hear how they all sound! With conductor Marin Alsop, you’ll even know your heckelphone from your sackbut and your tom-tom from your tam-tam – all by spending hours of fun with words, pictures and music tracks.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"Book","offer_id":46907753005336,"sku":"9781781983584","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3948643-2773700.jpg?v=1777536199"},{"product_id":"henze-nachtstucke-und-arien","title":"Henze: Nachtstucke Und Arien","description":"\u003cp\u003eAll of the Henze pieces on this set — which also includes “Los Caprichos” and, with the cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, “Englische Liebeslieder” — have been well recorded in recent years on the Wergo label. But some of those crisp takes can sound as though they’re still trying to redeem Henze for Boulez’s starker ears. As Alsop makes clear, that’s not the only way to hear him. - NY Times (Naxos)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46907956232472,"sku":"747313418176","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4038066-2775837.jpg?v=1777566329"},{"product_id":"scriabin-symphony-no-2-poem-of-ecstasy-symphony-no-4-falletta-buffalo-philharmonic","title":"Scriabin: Symphony No. 2; Poem Of Ecstasy, \"Symphony No. 4\"","description":"\u003cp\u003eScriabin composed most of his single-movement fourth symphony The Poem of Ecstasy between 1905 and 1908 in Italy and France. He originally intended it to be called Poème orgiaque (‘Orgiastic Poem’) with its unprecedented raw sensuality and overpowering aesthetic, taking chromaticism beyond even Wagnerian voluptuousness. (Naxos)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46907959607576,"sku":"747313413973","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4170002-2938821.jpg?v=1777566097"},{"product_id":"fuchs-point-of-tranquility","title":"Fuchs: Point Of Tranquility","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe fifth Naxos recording of works by Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by JoAnn Falletta, won the Grammy Award in 2018 for Best Classical Compendium. This new album reveals his mastery of the band medium and features the exceptional United States Coast Guard Band, in definitive performances of seven works for symphonic winds by one of America’s leading composers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46907972387096,"sku":"747313356775","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3835972-2585216.jpg?v=1777759690"},{"product_id":"bartok-concerto-for-orchestra-sz-116-music-for-strings","title":"Bartók: Concerto For Orchestra, Sz. 116 \u0026 Music For Strings,","description":"\u003cp\u003eBéla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, one of his greatest works, is a work of considerable structural ingenuity that unites classical forms and sonorities with the pungency of folk rhythms and harmonies. (Naxos)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46907979170072,"sku":"747313248674","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1987210_0fbaff2e-275f-4963-896c-687bffa2f6ab.jpg?v=1777775365"},{"product_id":"tarrodi-four-elements","title":"Tarrodi: Four Elements","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Nordic Chamber Orchestra, led by multiple award-winning conductors JoAnn Falletta and Patrik Ringborg, perform orchestral works by multiple award-winning Swedish composer, Andrea Tarrodi. (DB Productions)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DB Productions","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46908238790936,"sku":"7393787222042","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4118978-2872185.jpg?v=1777700634"},{"product_id":"jandali-concertos","title":"Jandali: Concertos","description":"\u003cp\u003eClarinetist Anthony McGill and violinist Rachel Barton Pine are featured soloists on a new recording of two concertos composed in response to societal injustices by Syrian composer Malek Jandali, performed by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and led by Marin Alsop, a champion of the composer’s work. (Cedille)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cedille","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46908239151384,"sku":"735131922029","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4201654-2974511.jpg?v=1777578200"},{"product_id":"falkenberg-debussy-the-moons-symphony-alsop-parry-london-symphony-orchestra-london-voices","title":"Falkenberg: The Moons Symphony","description":"\u003cp\u003eInternational award-winning composer, Amanda Lee Falkenberg has composed a dynamic new work that merges music and science. Through the persuasive and powerful forces of music, the symphony offers a chance to contemplate who and where we are in the universe. In 42 minutes they will be taken on an emotional journey, marveling at the wonders of these moons and the beauty of our planet. (Signum)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Signum Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46908304425240,"sku":"635212073025","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4129457-2878294.jpg?v=1777659612"},{"product_id":"gershwin-porgy-bess-highlights-alsop-philadelphia-orchestra","title":"Gershwin: Porgy \u0026 Bess (Highlights)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Marin Alsop present a live recording with highlights of Gershwin’s self-proclaimed American “Folk Opera” Porgy and Bess, together with a stellar cast and the Morgan State University Choir. Since its premiere in 1935, Porgy and Bess has been one of the most significant attempts to – following Antonin Dvorák’s famous instruction of 1893 – create American classical music inspired by African-American styles such as jazz, spirituals and the blues.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PENTATONE","offers":[{"title":"SACD","offer_id":46908430909720,"sku":"827949088360","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3973029-2713628.jpg?v=1777677163"},{"product_id":"rachmaninoff-piano-concertos-paganini-rhapsody","title":"Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos; Paganini Rhapsody","description":"\u003cp\u003eLukáš Vondrácek and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Scarcely do we encounter a connection between a musician and a composer so close, strong and energising. This recording was made with the superb Prague Symphony Orchestra, capturing performances rendering every detail, teeming with emotion, colour and contrast. Rachmaninoff in Lukáš Vondrácek’s hands. A lavish musical feast. (Supraphon)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Supraphon","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46908516008216,"sku":"099925432324","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4196670-2974329.jpg?v=1777613253"},{"product_id":"camilla-nylund-sings-masterpieces-from-the-great-american-songbook","title":"Camilla Nylund Sings Masterpieces From The Great American So  Camilla Nylund, Orf Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003eFinnish opera star Camilla Nylund sings masterpieces from the Great American Songbook in this unique collaboration with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under their music director Marin Alsop. The classic songs in this film were specially arranged to suit Nylund’s performance style, vocals and personality, as if they had been written for her. This special edition includes a Blu-ray of the concert film-project by André Heller in black and white, plus an audio only recording. (Naxos)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos AudioVisual","offers":[{"title":"DVD with CD","offer_id":46908530983192,"sku":"747313574759","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/2110747.20221021033444.jpg?v=1777970734"},{"product_id":"2023-naxos-music-group-catalogue-sampler-cd","title":"2023 Naxos Music Group Catalogue + Sampler CD","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eNaxos was founded in 1987 and has developed from being known primarily as a budget label focusing on standard repertoire into a virtual encyclopaedia of classical music with a catalogue of unparalleled depth and breadth. Innovative strategies for recording exciting new repertoire with exceptional talent have enabled the Naxos label to develop one of the largest and fastest⁠-⁠growing catalogues of unduplicated repertoire. Over 10,000 titles are currently available at affordable prices, recorded in state⁠-⁠of⁠-⁠the⁠-⁠art sound, both in hard format and on digital platforms. Naxos works with artists of the highest calibre and its recordings have been recognised with numerous international honours, including GRAMMY, ICMA, Opus Klassik and Gramophone Editor’s Choice Awards.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe company has also transformed into a global music group that owns, administers and\/or distributes a large number of other independent record labels. Some of these labels are listed in this catalogue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe sheer size of the 2023 catalogue requires it to be divided into three sections for convenient reading. Part 1 includes the Naxos label only, while Part 2 and Part 3 have the catalogues of the affiliated labels in the Naxos Music Group.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe sampler CD includes recordings from the Naxos main label as well as many of the group's global family of affiliates, with performances by \u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLeonard Slatkin, Boris Giltburg, JoAnn Falletta, Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt, Daniel Müller-Schott, Walter Klien, and more.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD with Book","offer_id":47105303445784,"sku":"730099148337","price":7.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/highlights.jpg?v=1777580704"},{"product_id":"kodaly-symphony-in-c-summer-evening-hary-janos-suite","title":"Kodaly: Symphony in C; Summer Evening; Hary Janos Suite","description":"\u003cp\u003eZoltán Kodály’s orchestral output is relatively small but brimming with Hungarian spirit. JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic (BPO) present one of the composer’s most popular works, the Háry János Suite, alongside Summer Evening and the Symphony in C major. Falletta and the BPO’s acclaimed previous Kodály album is on 8.573838.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":47227793735960,"sku":"747313455676","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4248082-3143538.jpg?v=1777532415"},{"product_id":"copland-the-tender-land-suite-creston-alto-saxophone-conc","title":"Copland: The Tender Land Suite; Creston: Alto Saxophone Conc","description":"\u003cp\u003eJoAnn Falletta conducts the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic in works by four extraordinary mid-20th-century American composers who helped shape the country’s musical destiny: Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Paul Creston and Ulysses Kay. Includes two world premiere recordings – Paul Creston's Saxophone Concerto and Ulysses Kay’s poignant and elegiac Pietà.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":47227833876760,"sku":"636943991121","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4258445-3142506.jpg?v=1777532530"},{"product_id":"dvoraks-prophecy-film-1-postclassical-ensemble","title":"Dvorák'S Prophecy - Film 1  Postclassical Ensemble","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis first film in the series keys on Dvorak’s prophecy and explores its present-day pertinence. His New World Symphony, still the best known and best loved symphonic work conceived on American soil, is saturated with the influence of plantation song, and also with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha. This act of appropriation, the film argues, was an act of empathy performed by a great humanitarian. (Naxos)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":47242819961112,"sku":"747313570355","price":6.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4009962-2746029_8e531be9-2857-4d73-bec1-5ac7b03ede16.jpg?v=1777563234"},{"product_id":"dvoraks-prophecy-film-2-william-sharp-pianists-steven-mayer-and-paul-sanchez","title":"Dvorák'S Prophecy - Film 2  William Sharp, Pianists Steven Mayer And Paul Sanchez","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe music at hand here includes Ives' Second Symphony (a milestone in culling the vernacular to set beside Huckleberry Finn). We also hear portions of Ives’s Concord Sonata performed by Steven Mayer and half a dozen Ives songs peerlessly sung (in live performance with Paul Sanchez) by William Sharp. The commentators include the Ives scholar Peter Burkholder and the conductor James Sinclair. (Naxos)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":47242819993880,"sku":"747313570157","price":6.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4009960-2746028.jpg?v=1777563206"},{"product_id":"prokofiev-complete-symphonies-sao-paulo-symphony-alsop","title":"Prokofiev: Complete Symphonies  Sao Paulo Symphony, Alsop","description":"\u003cp\u003eSergey Prokofiev’s seven symphonies are acknowledged as one of the major cycles of the 20th century, and these recordings with Marin Alsop and the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra have received widespread critical acclaim. From the crisp vitality of the youthful ‘Classical’ Symphony to the viscerally exciting Third, this is an unforgettable collection crowned by the bittersweet Seventh Symphony, the composer’s final significant work. (Naxos)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":47301730664728,"sku":"747313603831","price":36.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3940299-2691495.jpg?v=1777761231"},{"product_id":"walton-the-complete-facades-hila-plitman-fred-child-kevin-deas-virginia-arts-festival-chamber-orchestra-joann-falletta","title":"Walton: The Complete Facades  Hila Plitman, Fred Child, Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Orchestra, Joann Falletta","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdith Sitwell’s invitation to William Walton to collaborate on an innovative, revolutionary new work came at a critical moment in the young composer’s career, and \u003cem\u003eFaçade\u003c\/em\u003e proved to be his first great success. The peerless combination of a peculiarly English dry wit, genuine pathos and superlative technical skill remains an extraordinary achievement. Sitwell’s verses conjure a satirical and poignant world of bourgeois late-Victorian England, while Walton’s settings unfailingly enhance and enrich the texts in a work in which words and music are unquestionably of equal importance. This release includes the first recording of \u003cem\u003eSmall Talk\u003c\/em\u003e (1922) and three numbers first performed in 1977 but subsequently rejected by the composer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJoAnn Falletta is to be congratulated for bringing us Walton’s revisit of the piece in 1978 when he was 76, featuring eight more poems (the work’s original subtitle, “An Entertainment,” became “A Further Entertainment:). Falletta also includes some additional material, beginning with “Small Talk” from 1922 and three numbers from 1977, “Daphne,” “The White Owl,” and “The Last Galop”—the late ones have never been recorded before.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe special charm of this release is to be found in the acting skills of the narrators, now expanded from two to three. Falletta realized that Sitwell’s poems contain actual characters who could be brought vividly to life, and she has chosen her cast well. Hila Plitman is extremely versatile, sounding at times Russian or German in her delivery (she is actually Israeli). Fred Child is a vocally nimble PBS narrator, and well-regarded bass-baritone Kevin Deas comes across richly with an arch demeanor suggestive of the childlike nature of some of the poems. The result is extremely satisfying. Of course, the performance necessarily emerges sounding less British, less reserved and less formal, but we Americans have our own silly Ogden Nash tradition, and \u003cem\u003eFaçade \u003c\/em\u003eis none the worse for a more extroverted American approach. Jo Ann Falletta and her Virginians play with sass and spark.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e-- Fanfare\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":47301816320280,"sku":"747313437870","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4119044-2874462.jpg?v=1777566101"},{"product_id":"john-adams-city-noir-fearful-symmetries-marin-alsop-radio-symphonieorchester-wien","title":"John Adams: City Noir, Fearful Symmetries \/ Marin Alsop; Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien","description":"\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eJohn Adams’ City Noir was inspired by the cultural and social history of Los Angeles, with the composer himself calling it ‘an imaginary film score’, while Fearful Symmetries exemplifies his steamroller motor rhythms. The album ends with a capricious ‘Spider Dance’ of memorable rhythmic drive – a work dedicated to Marin Alsop who leads the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in these performances. Recording to be promoted concurrently with Marin Alsop's MET debut.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":48069624496408,"sku":"636943993521","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4302757-3148368.jpg?v=1777528522"},{"product_id":"baiba-skride-plays-benjamin-britten","title":"Baiba Skride Plays Benjamin Britten","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe story of the discovery and resurrection of Britten's Double Concerto for Violin and Viola is one of those rare moments of musicological spice that can capture the interest of even the more casual music lover. Unlike it, the Violin Concerto Op. 15 found itself thrust onto the world stage of music right away, its genesis having been rather straightforward – if hardly smooth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWinner of the first prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition (2001) Baiba Skride displays a natural approach to music-making that has endeared her to many of today’s most prestigious conductors and orchestras worldwide. She performs the Double Concerto with violist Ivan Vukcevic, who has appeared in some of the most important venues and festivals in Europe. They are accompanied by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop, whose performances won her many Gramophone Awards.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orfeo","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":48681814130968,"sku":"4011790220024","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/4290285-3141174.jpg?v=1777529331"},{"product_id":"saint-saens-the-carnival-of-the-animals-ravel-mother-goo","title":"Saint-Saëns: The Carnival of the Animals - Ravel: Mother Goo","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ca class=\"links\" href=\"\/marin-alsop-conducts-peter-and-the-wolf-284224\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlso available on standard DVD\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e These live performances from Snape Maltings Concert Hall present some of the most popular classical works for younger audiences. Their perennial appeal is a result of vivid melodies, witty instrumental characterisation, and in three works, the use of spoken texts to illuminate the narrative. Whether composed to amuse, entertain or educate, each possesses marvellous vitality, lyricism and bravura. The performances are conducted and narrated by Marin Alsop, one of the world’s most inspirational musical communicators.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e -----\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The chamber orchestra used for Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals, with two solo pianists, is of excellent quality. By far the most frequently played section, The Swan, is beautifully performed by the principal cello of this student ensemble.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The video was made in 2017 and 2018, the young people having had the good fortune of working with the conductor, Marin Alsop. The resulting concerts were filmed with Alsop acting as narrator, that narration becoming more serious as she takes us through The Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra, a searching test for the young players who give a very creditable performance. As one would expect from the Snape Malting's venue, the sound quality is excellent, the result being a highly desirable gift for the children in your life.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e – David's Review Corner (David Denton)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos AudioVisual","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":49000946172184,"sku":"730099010269","price":15.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3731017-2499992.jpg?v=1777762242"},{"product_id":"michael-daugherty-philadelphia-stories-ufo","title":"Michael Daugherty: Philadelphia Stories \u0026 UFO","description":"This is the third major-label monograph of diverse music of Michael Daugherty (b. 1954), the University of Michigan faculty member known for his engagement with pop-culture subject matter. The first, of his Superman-inspired Metropolis Symphony and other works, made a splash. Another brought us a series of sound-gags, including the bassoon concerto Dead Elvis. There’s also a release of his opera Jackie O and scattered works on numerous compilations, as well as a symphonic band version of UFO and other works on the Klavier label. This is his first Naxos release, part of the terrific “American Classics” series.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Philadelphia Stories, considered by the composer his Third Symphony, was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, which premiered it under David Zinman in 2001. The work is in three movements, as much a triptych of tone poems as an abstract symphony—an urban La mer. The titles of the movements indicate the gist: “Sundown on South Street,” “Tell-Tale Harp,” “Bells for Stokowski.” The piece is just under half-an-hour long, each of the first two movements being about seven-and-a-half minutes and the third about 14.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e If you know anything of Daugherty’s music, much of what’s here won’t surprise you for the most part. Daugherty frequently draws on pop and kitsch music archetypes in building up evocative larger forms. I can’t pin down any specific paraphrases in the first movement, but the several different kinds of orchestral pop, jazz, and Latin jazz conjure the atmosphere of Philly’s South Street, a byway of the musical night life where Daugherty himself had performed jazz and experimental music. The movement is a fantasia for two solo harps and orchestra, the title referring to The Tell-Tale Heart, which Edgar Allan Poe wrote in Philadelphia. Daugherty likens the somewhat gas-lit mood of the movement to Poe’s lyric poetry. The big shadow to go along with Stokowski’s in the last movement is Bach’s, alluding of course to the conductor’s famous orchestral transcriptions of Bach’s music. Daugherty begins the movement with a solo violin theme (arguably in the style of Bach), which serves as a basis for wide-ranging variations, Daugherty writes, “in my own musical language.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The second work, UFO (1999), is a five-movement concerto for percussion and orchestra, written for soloist Evelyn Glennie and the National Symphony and conducted at its premiere by Leonard Slatkin. The five movement titles are as evocative as those in Philadelphia Stories: “Traveling Music,” “Unidentified,” “Flying,” “???,” and “Objects”; each concentrates on different percussion instruments. There are a few neat moments, but from the subject matter one expects a more imaginative (Lachenmann-like? Messiaen-ish?) orchestral experience than one gets. Deft, but largely predictable—as in Philadelphia Stories. The latter, though, is a far more satisfying work; it suffers less from a desperation solely to entertain. (The symphonic-band instrumentation of this piece was created in 2000; it was commissioned by a consortium of university bands and recorded by Glennie and the University of North Texas Wind Symphony, Eugene Migliaro Corporon conducting.)\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Daugherty is a good composer from the standpoint of his ability to get what he wants out of his materials, but it’s hard to put one’s finger on what his true voice (that “my own musical language” of the above quote) might be beneath the busy surface of style-dropping. It could be argued that style isn’t something that can be heard from moment to moment, necessarily—that the whole of the work, the choices the composer makes in his gleanings from others, his extramusical impetus, are the style. Daugherty definitely has a taste for particular kinds of borrowings.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The performances are excellent. Marin Alsop obviously knows the Colorado Orchestra well and leads them with confidence through this often tricky music; they seem like they’re having fun. Glennie is outstanding as usual as a performer, but once again, she’s playing a commissioned piece that remains a little flat. Still, this disc is all in all a good and inexpensive introduction to Daugherty’s work. This Naxos series is invaluable.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Robert Kirzinger, FANFARE\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49605017305368,"sku":"636943916520","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/675438.jpg?v=1777941936"},{"product_id":"clyne-dance-elgar-cello-concerto","title":"Clyne: Dance - Elgar: Cello Concerto","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis formidable release features Inbal Segev performing Elgar’s emotive Cello Concerto coupled with DANCE, an inspiring new work by Grammy-nominated English composer Anna Clyne that was commissioned by Inbal. On this powerful recording, Marin Alsop conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Marin introduced Inbal to Anna, sparking a special synergy between the three women. While Anna was composing DANCE, a five-movement concerto inspired by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, further connections ensued. Anna’s soulful and vibrant music combines cultures that include her Irish-English family, Polish-Jewish ancestry and Inbal’s Israeli-American heritage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInbal expounds, “Anna’s music has an old-soul sensibility but is fresh and modern at the same time. This juxtaposition of old and new has always appealed to me; it suits my playing, as well as the tone of my 1673 Ruggieri cello.” Inbal’s idea to record Anna Clyne’s DANCE alongside Elgar’s Cello Concerto is timely: the two works were composed exactly 100 years apart. Inbal enthuses, “It is so rewarding to record and perform the work of a contemporary female composer whose music withstands comparison with Elgar’s. The two pieces share a certain sensibility – a romanticism, warmth and humanity – that transcends any stylistic differences.” Elgar’s Cello Concerto, written in the wake of World War I, is deeply reflective. Anna Clyne’s DANCE is optimistic and forward-looking. Inbal’s recording of these two cello concertos is timeless.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Avie Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49605021303064,"sku":"822252241921","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3819872-2571783.jpg?v=1778806707"},{"product_id":"corigliano-violin-concerto-the-red-violin-phantasmagori","title":"Corigliano: Violin Concerto \"The Red Violin\" \u0026 Phantasmagori","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFragmentary, kaleidoscopic, hallucinatory … creates a wonderfully atmospheric sense of colliding realities.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e3411070.az_CORIGLIANO_Violin_Concerto.html\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCORIGLIANO Violin Concerto, “The Red Violin 1.” Phantasmagoria: Suite from The Ghosts of Versailles • JoAnn Falletta, cond; Buffalo Phil O; 1 Michael Ludwig (vn) • NAXOS 8559671 (61:02)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Corigliano composed the score to The Red Violin, which turned out to be a masterpiece in its own right. Then, in 1997, with work on the score already completed while shooting on the film continued, Corigliano composed a new, 17-minute piece he called The Red Violin: Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra based on the chaconne progression he’d written for the film. But Corigliano wasn’t done with his Chaconne. Not wishing it to remain a stand-alone piece like Chausson’s Poème , Ravel’s Tzigane , or Beethoven’s Romances, he decided to write three new movements, using the Chaconne as the first movement of a substantive, nearly 40-minute-long violin concerto. And that is what we have here on this disc. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe violin the soloist here, Michael Ludwig, plays, is an 18th-century Lorenzo Storioni, from which the violinist draws a tone that is both liquid and penetrating. One could argue that Corigliano’s concerto is owned by Joshua Bell, for he has been more closely associated with it and more directly involved with the composer than Ludwig, or, for that matter, anyone else. Still, much as I appreciate Bell’s playing in general, I feel there are moments in this piece where he applies the schmaltz a little too thickly. Ludwig resists that temptation, and I think the concerto emerges the better for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the opening of Corigliano’s Phantasmagoria , a suite extracted from the composer’s largely successful opera The Ghosts of Versailles , you’d never guess that this creepy, slithery music sets the stage for what is essentially a “comedy.” As a work detached from its literary references and stage setting, Phantasmagoria becomes a virtuoso showpiece for orchestra. The piece seems to divide into two approximately equal halves. Much of the first half is busy, bustling, noisy, and nutty; the second half, from 13:03 to the end, is calmer, more lyrical, and takes on the feeling of fate accepted, which it is in the opera as Marie is beheaded a second time and reunited with Beaumarchais in Paradise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStrongly recommended.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFANFARE: Jerry Dubins\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Buffalo Philharmonic plays throughout with confident assurance under JoAnn Falletta’s baton. Assuming these are live performances ensemble and accuracy in these highly complex scores is excellent. In the spirit of even-handed fairness I should say I have read reviews of this disc elsewhere which make a point of praising the engineering reckoning it to be of award-winning standard. I cannot share that view but as with so many aspects of music; it is all a matter of taste. The Concerto is a very impressive work and one written with a great deal of care and love by John Corigliano – a wonderful tribute to his father. This Corigliano Concerto is right up there and hopefully its appearance on the Naxos with the benefits of distribution and affordability that brings will ensure many more music-lovers will get to hear this powerful and compelling work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49607029588248,"sku":"636943967126","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1654350.jpg?v=1777777156"},{"product_id":"kenneth-fuchs-works-for-baritone-voice-orchestra","title":"Kenneth Fuchs: Works for Baritone Voice \u0026 Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003eComposer Kenneth Fuchs and conductor JoAnn Falletta completed their fourth recording with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, August 30–September 1, 2013. The recording features baritone and Naxos artist Roderick Williams and is produced by Grammy Award-winner Tim Handley. The repertoire includes Falling Man (for baritone voice and orchestra); Movie House (seven poems by John Updike for baritone voice and chamber ensemble); and Songs of Innocence and of Experience (four poems by William Blake for baritone voice and chamber ensemble). Fuchs’ music continues to find its visual counterpart in the work of Abstract Expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler, whose art adorns the cover of this disc.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49607030341912,"sku":"636943975329","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/2604885.jpg?v=1777781845"},{"product_id":"barber-capricorn-concerto-a-hand-of-bridge-canzonetta","title":"BARBER: Capricorn Concerto \/ A Hand of Bridge \/ Canzonetta \/","description":"\u003cp\u003eIncludes work(s) by Samuel Barber.  Ensemble: Royal Scottish National Orchestra.  Conductor: Marin Alsop.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49607057473816,"sku":"636943913529","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/705005.jpg?v=1777800561"},{"product_id":"dvorak-a-symphony-no-9-from-the-new-world-suk-j","title":"Dvorak, A.: Symphony No. 9, \"From the New World\" \/ Suk, J.:","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eDVORÁK \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12b\"\u003eSymphony No. 9,\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e “From the New World.” \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eSUK \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003ePohádka, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eop. 16 \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12b\"\u003e• \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eBertrand de Billy, cond; Vienna RSO \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12b\"\u003e•\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e OEHMS 745 (72:09) \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cspan\u003eThere seems to be a never-ending river of recordings of Antonin Dvorák’s Symphony “From the New World.” This particular stream flows down the Danube from Vienna to upset my notion that I’d heard all that might be done with a work deservedly known as this composer’s masterpiece. I have accumulated more than a few recordings of it: LPs by Arturo Toscanini with the NBC SO and Rafael Kubelík and the VP; CDs by Alexander Titov and St. Petersburg’s O “New Philharmony,” Pavel Urbanek and the PFO, and Marin Alsop and the BSO. These recordings span over a half-century, exposing the diligent listener to shifts in orchestral styles and gradual improvement in recording technique. The most recent, by the Vienna RSO under Bertrand de Billy, is either the culmination of these trends and developments, or merely the most recent (an Oblomovian paradox, depending on how you look at it). De Billy’s reading has its own fascinations.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor some time I had come to view Urbanek and the PFO’s traditional reading my fave, until Alsop’s version, also in the grand tradition, with the BSO took the top spot on my list. This reranking was mostly owing to improvements in recording sophistication. Now, along comes Billy—pronounced Bee-Yee, as in Puilly (or Pwee-Yee) Fuissé—who is willing to take some unorthodox risks in his interpretation, and I find myself weakening. Fickle is the heart of the record reviewer (Ovid). \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cspan\u003eSurfing quotables in my volume of \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003eThe Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, I came upon a doozie. “Dvorák’s music is a particularly happy result of the major influences on his art: Wagner, Brahms, and folk music.” It encapsulates in one sentence a perhaps century-long conflict between the followers of Brahms and Wagner—an argument between Brahms’s pure music for its own sake and Wagner’s nationalistic music in service of the state. Or, in other terms, it highlights Brahms’s adherence to the classical forms vs. Wagner’s insistence upon totally new forms. Pardon this reduction to an oversimplified view, but to give both sides their due would take volumes. De Billy has a knack for bringing out the best in both points of view, to mine the series of big emotional moments \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003eand\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e to honor adherence to form. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cspan\u003eIn the slow second movement’s second theme (4:40 in), there are passages that remind me of Wagner’s “Forest Murmurs,” and others of his original orchestral inventions. And then (8:00 in) the horns blare forth,\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003e not\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e with the sustained force of Siegfried’s funeral music, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003ebut\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e with enough force to prepossess one and call Wagner to mind. Shortly (at 9:30), there is a passage that reminds me of Brahms in its precise delicacy of the woodwinds. So, listening closely, one can hear Brahms and Wagner in this Dvorák Symphony. All through the work, de Billy uses subtle reversals of emphasis, bringing from background to foreground, or playing loudly what is usually played softly. Here, I must emphasize that de Billy does not choose to make such reversals each and every time the possibility arises. He is not slavishly doctrinaire about it; rather, he seems to decide on an \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003ead hoc\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e basis. All of the score’s notes are represented in performance, but their presentation is subtly changed, perhaps to be ironic and introduce a postmodern flair to the performance. He’s not telling. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cspan\u003eWhich brings to mind the following notion: certain music would retain its coherence even if parts were played in reverse. In Terry Riley’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003eIn C\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, any musician may enter a bar and stay as long as he\/she wishes by inventing variations on the notes in the score before moving on to the next bar as long as he\/she remains in the key of C; and in certain of Bach’s pieces that were written for one instrument and then adapted (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003eby Bach\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e) to suit another, and owing to the qualities of one or the other (say, the slow organ instead of a quick harpsichord, with its faster action) can require more playing time to stretch out the score, and actually wind up much slower in performance though composed of the same notes. These are just two examples of music that is so formally strong the idiosyncrasies of performance can only add to its ambiance, hence interpretation, and give the music wider emotional scope to the listener and more opportunity for playfulness to the conductor. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBy playing Dvorák’s very familiar “New World” Symphony with his personal vision of how some loud passages might be better if played softly, of how with the woodwinds “backing up” the strings, some passages might be bettered by emphasizing the winds and letting the strings serve as “back up.” Employing such stratagems, de Billy brings a new spotlight to the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003ebas-relief\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e of the score. By shining his spotlight at slightly different angles, he creates new relationships among the shadows. It is still the same Symphony, but with slightly different emphases in the presentation, de Billy has made it new. He has traded in a tired, if venerable, old warhorse for a high-spirited young one. To add to this, the recording engineering is very, very clear and crisp. On a high-resolution system, say a good headphones rig, you can hear every damned thing; and such a recording will bring out the best in nearly all stereo rigs. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cspan\u003eI’m only familiar with one other recording of Josef Suk’s (Dvorák’s son-in-law) symphonic suite, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003eFairy Tale\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, and that one is played by Jirí Bêlohlávek and the Czech PO (1992) for Chandos. De Billy’s elapsed time for this piece is about 29:30, and Belohlávek’s is about 30:00. This makes the difference in elapsed times about 1.5 percent and pretty indistinguishable. De Billy’s version was recorded in 2008, and, owing to whatever technological advances, profits by each individual instrument’s better definition and the complete ensemble’s better balance. Suk was a very solid composer; though it was hard for him to step outside the shadow of his father-in-law, he does. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003eFairy Tale\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e has considerable charm, and de Billy, aided by the ORF (Austrian National Radio) engineers, brings it to the fore more than his predecessor managed to do. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cspan\u003e If you are the kind of record collector who is always on alert for the analogy to a very unique wine, like an Australian Rosé made from rich Shiraz grapes, you might like this album. It contains a richly flavored Dvorák Symphony “From the New World” at its best, and a zesty and charming \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003ePohádka\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, both benefitting from very fine recording engineering. Highly recommended. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: bold;\"\u003eFANFARE: Ilya Oblomov \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oehms Classics","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49607270596888,"sku":"812864018257","price":7.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1539271_8320702d-be4d-4382-aa30-b03617fa3ed8.jpg?v=1777685935"},{"product_id":"barber-piano-concerto-die-natali-medeas-meditation","title":"BARBER: Piano Concerto \/ Die Natali \/ Medea's Meditation","description":"Here at last we have a recording of Barber's marvelous Piano Concerto to rival (if not surpass) the classic Szell\/Browning recording for CBS (Sony), a performance which that company inexplicably has managed to reissue everywhere in the world except in the one place that it should: the U.S. While Szell and his Clevelanders remain unbeatable in terms of rhythmic precision and disciplined ensemble, Marin Alsop and her Scottish players offer ample excitement and drive, while pianist Stephen Prutsman certainly compares favorably to John Browning's pioneering effort (his later, more sedate remake for RCA doesn't factor into this particular equation at all). \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Prutsman puts steel into the music where required (the opening cadenza and much of the finale), but he offers a slow movement of great delicacy and tenderness too. He knows when to back off and let the orchestra have the spotlight, and together with Alsop manages a genuine dialog in such passages as the finale's second calm episode (music that's pure Prokofiev in its ironic wit). It's interesting how closely this finale resembles that of Ginastera's First Piano Concerto, composed at the same time, and both seem to be taking the finale of Bartók's Second Piano Concerto as a model. In any case, aside from Szell\/Browning, there is no finer performance of this work available, and it's very well recorded to boot.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e As for the couplings, the catchy Commando March plays itself, and Die Natali, a marvelously inventive fantasia on Christmas carols, receives a lovely performance. Why this charming piece isn't hauled out every December and played to death, as it surely deserves to be, is a genuine mystery. Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance features an excellent \"meditation\", brooding but not too slow, that yields to a vividly detailed but somewhat underpowered \"dance of vengeance\", just fractionally under tempo and lacking the ultimate hysterical frenzy (as in Munch\/Boston) at the climaxes. However, given the overall excellence of the other items on offer, this isn't a major liability, and for the Piano Concerto alone this disc will be an essential acquisition for anyone who cares about Barber's music.\u003cbr\u003e --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49607271579928,"sku":"636943913321","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/450897_69c6e123-728e-4bc5-85cb-ef06143c1d44.jpg?v=1777786116"},{"product_id":"glass-p-symphonies-nos-2-and-3","title":"GLASS, P.: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3","description":"The competition is full-priced, from Nonesuch, and the formidable Glass-specialist and collaborator Dennis Russell Davies. On sonic grounds, I’d prefer this new Naxos disc of two symphonies from the mid 1990s. Davies is irreproachable as a Glass conductor, but in the case of these works, I find the Nonesuch recordings a touch claustrophobic, with much of the air sucked out of the acoustic. The older Glass\/Naxos disc was even more successful in this regard (the Violin Concerto on 8.554568) but this is pretty good sound, captured by Tim Handley in the Concert Hall, Lighthouse, by the busy harbor at Poole in Dorset, England. The bustling, maritime setting seems to infect the music-making, especially for the rousing finale of the Second Symphony, like an Olympic yacht-race through a choppy sea on a bright, bracing morning. American symphonies used to stumble at the finale obstacle (so did symphonies everywhere) but through patient application of his familiar style, and his patented modal, orchestral dynamism, Glass whizzes around the course with no faults or penalties. This should make converts of anyone who enjoys symphonies from Bax to Bernstein. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Elsewhere, the dark and brooding moods are never overplayed or undersold by Marin Alsop. This isn’t the world’s most virtuosic band, but they rarely, and only very slightly sound strained by Glass’s high-lying violin lines. More performances from the big-name orchestras would bring a more expressive, forthright performing tradition, and maybe a faster finale for the Third. Glass’s Indian roots are often on display (there’s an Eastern cut to his thematic jib, here), but expressive results are fruitful. There are some reminders of other symphonists. In the Second it sometimes seems Alan Hovhaness, Lou Harrison, and Bill Schuman have met up for a drink with Sibelius, who is playing the Widor Toccata over there in the corner. Glass’s individual symphonism works, though, in this 43-minute piece, thanks to the skillful manipulation of orchestral contrasts as a structural device, a legacy, maybe, of his film-score experience. The Third Symphony is closer to the Glass mainstream, in four short movements for strings alone. Here, Alsop’s patient approach brings out the meaning in the music, away from the talk of polyrhythm and process. There’s fear, anxiety, and dismay (the world) behind some of those sunny repetitions, and physicality in the dance rhythms. Well-caught pizzicatos in the second movement, too, and an expressive solo display from the violin in the edgy, pulsating third section, which is a major success in this tense, sensual reading.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I wholeheartedly recommend this release (the first of a cycle, I trust), and again salute Philip Glass for doing it his way. The music deserves the widest exposure and popularity, and it deepens with acquaintance. This Naxos CD transformed my opinion of these works.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Paul Ingram, FANFARE\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Philip Glass' symphonies are unique among the composer's output for their relative harmonic and thematic complexity. Listeners put off by Glass' endlessly repeated arpeggios will be relieved to find scant evidence of them in these works. Instead, like his opera Beauty and the Beast, Glass spins long melodic lines that go through many harmonic permutations before they are inevitably repeated. Thus, Symphony No. 2's first movement creates an air of expectation, something that Glass maintains through shifting instrumental timbres and stimulating dynamic contrast as the movement builds, Bolero-like, to a grand climax. After the soothing, somewhat meditative sonic environment of the slow movement, the finale breaks in with its agitated dance rhythms. This movement has the least harmonic variety of the three, and listeners unsympathetic to Glass' method may experience repetition fatigue.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Symphony No. 3 is almost radical in its use of traditional forms, including chaconne and rondo. Glass replaces the expansiveness of the earlier work with a highly concentrated thematic process that packs substantially more musical ideas into only slightly more than half the former symphony's duration. The second movement is particularly interesting, with its compound meters and hints of Bartók. Marin Alsop brings her long familiarity with the composer's music to her convincing performances of both works, although she faces strong competition in the No. 3 from Glass specialist Dennis Russell Davies, who leads a slightly more compelling rendition with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. For its part, the Bournemouth Symphony plays keenly, maintaining enthusiasm and rhythmic exactitude even in the more repetitious passages. Naxos' warm and spacious recording presents the music with a compelling impact. [12\/03\/2004]\u003cbr\u003e --Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49607272464664,"sku":"636943920220","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/683493.jpg?v=1777777667"},{"product_id":"fuchs-k-canticle-to-the-sun-united-artists","title":"FUCHS, K.: Canticle to the Sun \/ United Artists","description":"\u003cb\u003eFuchs’s distinctive voice, flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Kenneth Fuchs is fortunate indeed to have not one but two discs of his music recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. The first, in 2003, was nominated for two Grammys in 2005 and the second, recorded in 2006, should do well too, such is the quality of both the music and music-making. Holding it all together in the orchestral pieces and the mixed quintet is conductor JoAnn Falletta, who made such a strong impression in her recent disc of Respighi (review).\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e United Artists, the first item on the disc, was written specifically for the LSO as a gesture of thanks for their earlier recording of Fuchs’s works (Naxos 8.559224). At its core is a four-note motif, presented first in the Coplandesque opening fanfare. But this isn’t derivative music; indeed, the composer’s distinctive ‘voice’ is evident from the outset, and his flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through in this atmospheric opener.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Quiet in the land is another of those vast musical landscapes that might provoke comparisons with Copland, yet Fuchs’s evocation of the Midwestern Plains just as the Iraq war was beginning is rather more complex and ambiguous in its sentiments. As the composer writes in the liner notes, ‘I wondered how quiet the spirit of our land might be’.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Even without this programme the opening bars hint at harmony, subtly undermined by vague discord - just listen to that quiet, agitated figure that begins at 1:30, beneath the more lyrical and expansive melody above. It is such lucid, ‘hear-through’ writing, yet it’s full of warmth. The members of the LSO manage to bring out both these aspects of the score, blending precision with feeling. And what a haunting close, too.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The recording venue – St Luke’s in London’s Old Street – is very well captured by the engineers, with no hint of brittleness or edge. The musicians seem ideally placed, too, which is particularly welcome in Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze for brass quintet. Subtitled an ’Idyll ... after two works on paper by Helen Frankenthaler’ the first movement yokes together two eternal opposites – fire (the restless first section) and ice (the more muted second section).\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e There seems to be an underlying creative tension in some of these pieces, perhaps an attempt to reconcile musical and emotional extremes. For instance, in Summer Bronze the music is strangely mercurial – now lyrical, now dissonant, now both. But it’s that other dichotomy, between outward virtuosity and inner feeling, that these seasoned players – always secure, always poised – convey so well.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Based on a painting by Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm does contain some jazzy snippets, but the emphasis seems to be on sonorities, with long, lyrical melodic lines and, at times, a quirky bass. It is a strangely ‘in-between’ piece; to use the autumn analogy, summer is not quite done, yet winter is on its way. In his notes Fuchs describes how the two states are drawn together and, indeed, how one becomes the other: ‘An unusual aspect of this composition is that in its final section the flute, oboe, and clarinet metamorphose into their lower – perhaps autumnal – counterparts, the alto flute, English horn, and bass clarinet.’ It’s a remarkable sleight of hand, deftly constructed and seamlessly executed.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Canticle of the Sun – a hymn tune based on 13th-century texts by St Francis of Assisi – is built on a four-note motif. Written for the LSO’s principal horn player, Timothy Jones, this 20-minute gem has a radiant, all-embracing optimism that is just irresistible. Indeed, it is not unlike a stained glass window, all those fragments of high colour glowing in the light behind. But at the centre of it all is Jones’s supple and passionate playing, surely as seductive a performance of this piece as we are ever likely to hear.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e As with Respighi’s Church Windows, Falletta displays a sense of line and phrase that is most welcome in this music. And while I’ve grumbled about the sound on some Naxos releases I’m prepared to eat humble pie on this one. The engineers have done an exceptional job capturing the sound of the LSO at St Luke’s; what a pleasant change from the dry-as-dust Barbican.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Early days, I know, but this could be one of my discs of 2008.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49607273513240,"sku":"636943933527","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1285396.jpg?v=1777751652"},{"product_id":"prokofiev-symphony-no-3-scythian-suite-autumn","title":"Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3 - Scythian Suite - Autumn","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003ca class=\"links\" href=\"album.jsp?album_id=1803598\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e It is also available on standard CD. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e This fourth volume in Marin Alsop’s acclaimed Prokofiev symphonic cycle features two of his most viscerally exciting works. Using material salvaged from his opera The Fiery Angel, the Third Symphony was hailed by Serge Koussevitzky at its 1929 première as ‘the best symphony since Tchaikovsky’s Sixth’. Originally commissioned as a ballet by Sergey Dyagilev but rejected as un-danceable, the Scythian Suite has become a popular orchestral showpiece, while Prokofiev retained a lifelong fondness for his dark-hued early symphonic sketch Autumn.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos AudioVisual","offers":[{"title":"Blu-Ray","offer_id":49607997194520,"sku":"730099004763","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/2874213.jpg?v=1777755430"},{"product_id":"adams-j-nixon-in-china","title":"Adams, J.: Nixon in China","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"She leads the score with grand sweep and understanding, and her Colorado forces bring out its colors vividly; moreover, she inspires her cast to sing as if they're having a great time with this no-longer-new but still odd opera.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Nonesuch's 1987 recording of this opera, produced when the work was new, was revelatory. Though clearly a piece of mimimalism, it did not rely only on endless repetition; indeed, Adams' musical language was varied enough to make Nixon in China a fascinating opera despite very little action and a somewhat unrevealing text by Alice Goodman. The Nixons and the events of the 1972 visit came across as oddly shallow. It's clear now that that was the point: Nixon's first-act rant, \"News has a kind of mystery\", is much the key to the opera. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e It also seems wittier and more purposefully ironic now, with Kissinger's villainy almost overshadowed by his ladykilling; Pat Nixon's innocence almost charming (we've seen worse since); Madame Mao's berserk aria even more pointedly wacky and funny; and the contrast between Chou En-lai's philosophizing and Richard Nixon's simplemindedness clearer than ever. During the toasts in the third scene of the first act, Chou's toast, an eloquent paean to the future (\"Our children race downhill unflustered into peace...\"), is accompanied by even arpeggios; when Nixon's clichés take over (\"a vote of thanks to one and all who made this possible\"), we're jarred into paying attention to his mundanity by disconnected, disparate tones. It's masterly.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Each scene in the first act still strikes me as a few minutes too long, but Act 2, particularly with the spectacular and varied music for the surreal opera performance, is riveting. The frustrating last act is oblique in its dramatic thrust (it features personal reflections from all of the characters except, tellingly, Kissinger), but it is food for thought even if it is a dramatic anti-climax. It's a strange, quiet way to end an opera--but take it for what it is.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e This new recording, taken from a live performance at Denver's Ellie Caulkins Opera House in June, 2008, is brilliant. It is sonically way ahead of the Nonesuch (which was recorded at a very low level), thus making it possible to understand almost every word, and Marin Alsop's tempos are slightly slower than Edo de Waart's, which also helps comprehension. She leads the score with grand sweep and understanding, and her Colorado forces bring out its colors vividly; moreover, she inspires her cast to sing as if they're having a great time with this no-longer-new but still odd opera.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Robert Orth's Nixon has just the right amount of self-parody that \"playing\" Nixon requires--the distance between 1987 and now is very long and we can sense ironies from our vantage point that we were blind to then. Maria Kanyova's Pat also seems more sympathetic while remaining as publicly simple as she always was, and Kanyova's voice and diction are splendid. Marc Heller handles Mao's high tessitura, sometimes bordering on madness, with great character and flavor. Chen-Ye Yuan's Chou is beautifully sung and he captures both the character's joylessness and intelligence. Thomas Hammons (also on the Nonesuch recording) uses his dark, growling bass to show us everything we need to know about the cynical Kissinger, and Tracy Dahl, as Madame Mao, is pretty frightening, even while delivering her Queen of the Night-like aria.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e There's not much to decide between this set and the Nonesuch, which is still available. As mentioned, this new one is sonically superior (and cheaper), but otherwise it's pretty much a tie. Naxos, like Nonesuch, supplies a libretto; Nonesuch's booklet has superb essays and a better synopsis.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e --Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com (\u003cstrong\u003e10\/10\u003c\/strong\u003e!)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49608006500632,"sku":"730099902274","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1569044.jpg?v=1777740220"},{"product_id":"bernstein-anniversaries-fancy-free-suite-overture-to-cand","title":"Bernstein: Anniversaries, Fancy Free Suite, Overture to Cand","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe sparkling overture to Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 musical Candide immediately found a prominent place in concert programs all over the world and is now one of his most frequently performed pieces. Many of Bernstein’s best loved works drew inspiration from the city of New York, and this is true both of the three sailors pursuing female conquest in the ballet ‘Fancy Free,’ and of the rip-roaring swing rhythm and big tunes from the musical ‘Wonderful Town.’ Bernstein celebrated his friends and family with his ‘Anniversaries’- piano vignettes heard here for the first time in colorfully expanded orchestrations. Marin Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene who passionately believes that “music has the power to change lives.” She became music director of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra in 2012 and made history in 2013 as the first female conductor of the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms, which she returned to conduct in 2015. As a student of Leonard Bernstein, Alsop is central to his 100th anniversary celebrations, conducting Bernstein’s ‘Mass’ at the Ravina Festival, where she serves as musical curator for 2018 and 2019.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49608059060504,"sku":"636943981429","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3572605_27c47c2b-ebcb-4a4c-a597-aea02f20baf2.jpg?v=1777783485"},{"product_id":"michael-daugherty-route-66","title":"Michael Daugherty: Route 66","description":"\u003cimg src=\"\/graphics\/p10s10.gif\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  Michael Daugherty manages to have his musical cake and eat it too. His music's eclectic \"pop\" elements rub shoulders with thoroughly modern compositional techniques. Time Machine, for example, requires three conductors, but its various textural layers and rhythmic complexities never sound confused. Indeed, its ticking woodblocks sound very much like Daugherty--something similar occurs at the start of Ghost Ranch, inspired by paintings by the always marvelous Georgia O'Keefe. Both this latter work and Sunset Strip are triptychs in the grand tradition of Ives (Three Places in New England) and Debussy (La mer). \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Route 66, by contrast, is a seven-minute cross-country travelogue, and one of Daugherty's best-known works (after the expansive Metropolis Symphony). Marin Alsop has established herself as a champion of Daugherty's music, and performs all of it with obvious commitment. The Bournemouth orchestra, particularly its brass section (horns and trumpets), makes the most of the numerous solo opportunities that Daugherty offers the players. Naxos' engineers do an excellent job capturing the music's wide range of colors and, in Time Machine, its spacial elements. No reservations whatever--this is just excellent.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49608083898648,"sku":"636943961322","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1796712_694e15f7-25c5-4383-aba4-f5bb36f1d26a.jpg?v=1777751673"},{"product_id":"bernstein-symphony-no-3-kaddish","title":"Bernstein: Symphony No. 3 \"Kaddish\"","description":"\u003cp\u003eThree examples of Leonard Bernstein’s vocal art can be heard in this recording. His Symphony No. 3 ‘Kaddish’ shuns traditional symphonic ideas in favor of an eclectic theatrical and oratorio-like form with a prominent rôle for speaker. For this recording, Marin Alsop has returned to the work’s original narrative text, heard before the 1977 revision. The Lark – heard in a concert version with added narration – derives from Lillian Hellman’s adaptation of L’Alouette on the life of Joan of Arc, and it was this music that Bernstein reworked into his Missa Brevis many years later. Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony since 2007 and Principal Conductor the São Paulo Symphony since 2013, the NYC-born Marin Alsop is recognized across the world for her innovative programming as well as her bold, audience-expanding community and education outreach initiatives.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell20_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003e Under Alsop's baton, the Baltimore Symphony realizes Bernstein’s extraordinary orchestral effects in ways that will both scarify you and tug at your heartstrings; and while the text is still the embarrassment it always was, narrator Claire Bloom delivers it as if it were Shakespearian prose. She believes in the part and gives it a powerful reading. Soprano Kelley Nassief will melt your heart in her “Kaddish 2” movement solo, and both the boy and adult choirs are superb. I’m really glad to have this performance, especially since my Columbia LP has disappeared and this is now the only recording I have of the original 1963 work. It’s a fantastic performance and a spectacular recording.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e– Fanfare\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Kaddish is recorded here in a performance of great conviction from Marin Alsop, with the wonderful Claire Bloom achieving a happy medium between the declamatory and the confidential. There are instances of pure gold - a consoling lullaby at the heart of the piece (featuring limpid soprano Kelley Nassief) which Bernstein called his 'Pietà'.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e - Gramophone Magazine\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49608084324632,"sku":"636943974223","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/2950445.jpg?v=1777791551"},{"product_id":"jack-gallagher-symphony-no-2-ascendant-quiet-reflectio","title":"Jack Gallagher: Symphony No. 2 \"Ascendant\" \u0026 Quiet Reflectio","description":"\u003cp\u003eJack Gallagher continues his association with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta with Symphony No. 2 ‘Ascendant,’ a robust, colorful work of dramatic contrasts and expansive architecture that seeks to express the aspirations and strivings of the human spirit. Quiet Reflections is a calm, serenely lyrical meditation which evokes a sense of longing for past tranquility. Gallagher’s previous Naxos release Orchestral Music (8.559652) with the LSO conducted by JoAnn Falletta was awarded five stars by BBC Music Magazine and hailed as “fresh and exuberant” and for “its explosions of sound and colour” by Gramophone.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49608084783384,"sku":"636943976821","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/2829657_6e385987-80c1-4c3b-87f6-4cd87da6fcd3.jpg?v=1777781857"},{"product_id":"fuchs-piano-concerto-spiritualist","title":"Fuchs: Piano Concerto \"Spiritualist\"","description":"\u003cb\u003e2019 Grammy Award WInner - Best Classical Compendium\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  Kenneth Fuchs is one of America’s leading composers. He celebrates his unique fifteen-year recording history with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra with this stunning release of three new concertos and an orchestral song cycle. Kenneth Fuchs has composed music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, and various chamber ensembles. His music has achieved significant global recognition through performances, media exposure, and digital streaming and downloading throughout North and South America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Australia. The London Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, has recorded five discs of Fuchs’s music for Naxos American Classics. The first, released in August 2005, was nominated for two GRAMMY® Awards (“Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra” and “Producer of the Year, Classical”).\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  -----\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Now stretching back over the past fifteen years, JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra have been recording the major works of Kenneth Fuchs.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  All of the present disc comes from the past six years, the most recent, Poems of Life, completed in 2017. The opening Piano Concerto, in the conventional three movements, was composed at the request of Jeffrey Biegel, who is the soloist on this disc. Often testing his technical virtuosity, the finale calls for prodigious dexterity in the fast flowing finale.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  We can admire the London Symphony for the multitude of colours they provide, just as if the play the music regularly, and our gratitude to the conductor, JoAnn Falletta, the composer’s unstinting champion.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  – David's Review Corner (David Denton)","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49608085405976,"sku":"636943982426","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3807085.jpg?v=1777791235"},{"product_id":"prokofiev-symphony-no-6-op-111-waltz-suite-op-110","title":"Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6, Op. 111 \u0026 Waltz Suite, Op. 110","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis fifth volume of the Prokofiev’s complete symphonies joins a series of acclaimed recordings from the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra with its principal conductor and music director Marin Alsop. Critics have warmly welcomed each release of this edition, from volume 1 with the Fifth Symphony from 2010, which “comes up trumps in a dramatic yet highly polished performance… an outstanding achievement” (BBC Music Magazine), to the “unfailingly good string playing, often more sensitively nuanced than that of her rivals…” (Gramophone) of volume 4’s Third Symphony.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell5_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003eMarin Alsop turns up with an excellent reading of the Sixth almost in spite of herself. Something in the work speaks, if not to her, then to the orchestra, which plays with fervor and intensity fully befitting the music and with considerable sensitivity to the many shades of darkness that Prokofiev here puts on display. Alsop seems more to be carried along with the music than to shape it—her overly fast finale, indeed, almost derails the movement’s effectiveness. But the performance as a whole turns out to be very successful indeed, with the gradations of Prokofiev’s anti-triumphalist writing coming through clearly and the sectional stability of the orchestra allowing the symphony’s many themes and unusual balances to emerge to fine effect. The reality must be that Alsop is responsible for shaping this very fine performance, but it almost feels as if the orchestra is playing without a conductor, with suppleness and sectional sensitivity that bring forth, all in all, a very impressive reading. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell5_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003eAlsop seems a stronger presence in the six-movement and altogether lighter \u003cem\u003eWaltz Suite,\u003c\/em\u003e in which Prokofiev recycled three pieces from \u003cem\u003eCinderella,\u003c\/em\u003e two from \u003cem\u003eWar and Peace\u003c\/em\u003e and one from an abandoned film project, \u003cem\u003eLermontov,\u003c\/em\u003e into a half-hour suite that explores three-quarter time from a wide variety of angles and with numerous emotional high and low points. Again the orchestra delivers first-rate playing, and the result is a highly interesting juxtaposition of a 1945–47 symphony that is very serious indeed with a 1946–47 suite that remains determinedly on the frothy side.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e– Infodad.com\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Marin Alsop and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra continue their Prokofiev series for Naxos with his sixth symphony, written as an elegy for the victims of the second world war but condemned as anti-Soviet and banned in 1948, a year after its completion. Alsop and her players handle the great climactic moments with elan but the central threnody lacks the compassion of, for example, Sakari Oramo’s recording with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The vibrant Waltz Suite, however, really swings, with some stylish solo playing in all sections of the orchestra.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e – Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49644142625048,"sku":"747313351879","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3435675.jpg?v=1777767648"},{"product_id":"prokofiev-symphony-no-3-op-44-scythian-suite-op-20","title":"Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3, Op. 44 \u0026 Scythian Suite, Op. 20","description":"This fourth volume in Marin Alsop’s acclaimed Prokofiev symphonic cycle features two of his most viscerally exciting works. Using material salvaged from his opera The Fiery Angel, the Third Symphony was hailed by Serge Koussevitzky at its 1929 première as ‘the best symphony since Tchaikovsky’s Sixth’. Originally commissioned as a ballet by Sergey Dyagilev but rejected as un-danceable, the Scythian Suite has become a popular orchestral showpiece, while Prokofiev retained a lifelong fondness for his dark-hued early symphonic sketch Autumn.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  Review:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  Even die-hard fans will admit that Prokofiev's seven symphonies aren't always magnificent and Marin Alsop's elegant lucidity provides only a partial solution to the problem. She gets unfailingly good string playing, often more sensitively nuanced than that of her rivals, but her Sao Paulo team does tend to 'normalize' the invention, smoothing away rough edges in a manner that not everyone will find idiomatic. Still, Alsop's reading works on its own terms, and if she makes the music sound as much like Roussel as Stravinsky one can perhaps discern why Serge Diaghilev chose to reject the Scythian Suite as insufficiently Russian.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  – Gramophone","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49644161630488,"sku":"747313345274","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/2873544.jpg?v=1777768821"},{"product_id":"r-strauss-le-bourgeois-gentilhomme-suite-ariadne-auf-nax","title":"R. Strauss: Le bourgeois gentilhomme Suite \u0026 Ariadne auf Nax","description":"\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/blog.naxos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8.573460.mp3\" class=\"links\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eListen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI sure hope the folks in Buffalo know what a prize they have in JoAnn Falletta. Her Naxos discography has few peers in terms of imaginative programming and quality of results. The city couldn’t ask for a more positive or alluring cultural calling card, and the present release offers a case in point. There have been many fine recordings of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, but this one stands with the best: for clarity, elegance, distinguished solo work (superb oboe, William Preucil’s solo violin), you name it. Although scored for a chamber orchestra, it’s amazing how congested and fussy so many performances sound. Not here. Just listen to the opening processional of “The Dinner,” with its bold horns and transparent textures. Great stuff.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHowever, the real item of interest is the “Symphony-Suite” arranged by D. Wilson Ochoa from Ariadne auf Naxos, the original companion work to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Arranging suites from Strauss’ operas is a trend that can only be encouraged. Strauss did it himself, of course, but mostly without much enthusiasm or imagination. So here’s a case where the intervention of more caring hands is clearly called for.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis suite, forty minutes in all, contains three chunks from the prologue and four from the opera itself. It is gorgeous. Even those who know the opera well may be surprised at how much lovely material slips by without notice in stage performances, such as the “Intermezzo” music on the second to last track here (sound clip). You do get some of the more famous bits (“Es gibt ein Reich,” for example, and the closing scene), but it really is astonishing how much care Strauss lavished on sections that flit by as mere accompaniment–never mind the thematic interest that they contain. Here, thanks to Falletta and the folks in Buffalo, in this luminously played and recorded performance, we can savor them afresh. So what are you waiting for? Go for it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- \u003ci\u003eClassicsToday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49644162679064,"sku":"747313346073","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3548944.jpg?v=1777767226"},{"product_id":"prokofiev-orchestral-works","title":"Prokofiev: Orchestral Works","description":"\u003cp\u003eSergey Prokofiev’s final years were clouded by ill-health, and the Seventh Symphony was his last significant work, full of poignant nostalgia and restrained but deeply expressed emotion. The Love for Three Oranges consolidated Prokofiev’s reputation in the West in the 1920s, both this and the satirical tale of Lieutenant Kije producing two of his most popular suites. This is the final volume of the acclaimed cycle of Prokofiev’s Symphonies with the Sao Paolo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e -----\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell3_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003eAlsop captures the lyrical aspects of the Seventh work really well. She also has the advantage of a superior recording in the acoustically friendlier Sala São Paulo. The orchestra is superb throughout, but special mention should be made of the woodwinds that have notable solos in the work.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e– MusicWeb International\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eThis is one of the most desirable Sevenths on disc. The Sao Paulo orchestra are in good shape, and continue with a display of their refined tonal quality through the remainder of the disc, the creamy double-bass solo at the opening of the Romance in the Kije Suite worthy of special mention. Commendable inner detail, but play the disc at a very high volume to bring it to life.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e – David's Review Corner\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49644168904984,"sku":"747313362073","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3740255.jpg?v=1777733028"},{"product_id":"hagen-d-shining-brow-opera","title":"Hagen, D.: Shining Brow [Opera]","description":"\u003cb\u003eSuperbly varied, brilliant and expressive … extremely valuable.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Now in his late forties Daron Hagen has been eminently successful for many years in a wide variety of musical genres: orchestral, concertos, chamber music, vocal and opera. He has received commissions from leading American orchestras like the New York Phil, the Philadelphia and the National Symphony and from numerous instrumentalists. He numbers among his teachers Ned Rorem, David Diamond, Witold Lutos?awski and Leonard Bernstein. With such diverse musical influences it's no wonder that his own compositional style is eclectic, a remark that is in no way deprecating. It only denotes that he is at home in a variety of styles and is able to adjust to the requirements for each specific composition. I have listened to excerpts from a number of his compositions and the remaining impression is that here is basically a warm romantic with ability and willingness to write gorgeous melodies.  \u003ci\u003eRomeo and Juliet\u003c\/i\u003e for flute, cello and orchestra is a splendid example and the second movement from his third piano trio  \u003ci\u003eWayfaring Stranger\u003c\/i\u003e (2007) is extremely beautiful. He is just as adept at writing rhythmically fresh and rather naughty music for brass - the  \u003ci\u003eInvention\u003c\/i\u003e from  \u003ci\u003eConcerto for Brass Quintet\u003c\/i\u003e!. He is also accomplished when writing for the human voice. I haven't heard any of his solo songs - of which there are a lot - but his choral writing is extremely affecting.  \u003ci\u003eThe Waking Father\u003c\/i\u003e for six male voices is music to return to. His musical idiom is largely tonal though he employs various modern techniques for expressive reasons. Mixing styles - high and low - is one of his hallmarks and he is a splendid communicator, which his first opera  \u003ci\u003eShining Brow \u003c\/i\u003eaptly demonstrates. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It was in July 1989 that Daron Hagen was asked by the Madison Opera to write an opera about the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Together with the chosen librettist, Paul Muldoon, Hagen worked out a synopsis and set to work with the first act, which fizzed along without problems. The second act was tougher and he met Leonard Bernstein several times for guidance. Bernstein died in October 1990, before the opera was finished, and it is dedicated to his memory. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Frank Lloyd Wright fell in love with a client's wife Mamah while outlining their house. They left their respective wife and husband, went to Europe. Eventually returning to the USA, they built a house in Wisconsin,  \u003ci\u003eTaliesin\u003c\/i\u003e, which is Welsh for 'Shining Brow'. In 1914, when Wright was in Chicago, his manservant murdered seven people in the house, including Mamah and her two children and then set the house on fire. Two survivors managed to put out the fire but the house was seriously damaged. This is essentially the story of the opera. Frank Lloyd Wright lived until 1959 and probably his most famous creation is the Guggenheim Museum in New York. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Musically Hagen's score is a conglomerate of the manifold styles I referred to in his other works, but wholly efficient and personal.  \u003ci\u003eShining Brow \u003c\/i\u003eis a number opera with arias, choruses, orchestral numbers and ensembles. The music is very varied to mirror the dramatic and emotional contents of the story. The chorus of draftsmen (CD 1 tr. 2) has 'go' and makes me think of Orff and  \u003ci\u003eCarmina burana\u003c\/i\u003e. Wright's arietta (CD 1 tr. 5) is melodious and agreeable and his wife Catherine's aria (CD 1 tr. 6) has echoes of Broadway musical. The  \u003ci\u003eSullivan Variations\u003c\/i\u003e (CD 1 tr. 8) is hymn-like brass music and there is another chorus with plainsong character. In act II there is a barbershop quartet (CD 2 tr. 8) and the  \u003ci\u003eCanapé Variations\u003c\/i\u003e (CD 2 tr. 9) is a long gossip scene at a cocktail party played against the waltz from  \u003ci\u003eDer Rosenkavalier\u003c\/i\u003e. Initially there are quotations from the  \u003ci\u003ePresentation of the Silver Rose\u003c\/i\u003e from the same opera. Symbolically this 'theft' of another composer's music is a parallel to Wright's 'theft' of another man's wife. Sullivan's arietta (CD 2 tr. 15) is a song that should be on many opera-lovers' list of the most beautiful opera arias. It is followed by an  \u003ci\u003ea cappella \u003c\/i\u003echorus that nods in the direction of Bernstein's  \u003ci\u003eCandide\u003c\/i\u003e (the Westphalia chorus). The rhythmic elements are often very much in the foreground and there are no longueurs. To my mind this is a truly inspired and dramatically convincing opera and readers who prefer operas with melodies should know that there is a wealth of melodic inventiveness. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The cast is a good one and several of the members have taken part in earlier productions, including Robert Orth as Frank Lloyd Wright and Brenda Harris as Mamah. They are both excellent and Robert Frankenberry as Wright's one-time mentor and friend Louis Sullivan sports a fine lyric tenor. The Buffalo forces are splendid and JoAnn Falletta brings out the dark dramatic side of the work as well as the lyrical music of which there is also a lot. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The recording can't be faulted and the few stage noises only enhance the feeling of a real occasion. While writing the final paragraphs of this review I have been listening again to large portions of the opera and can report that it grows further with renewed acquaintance. The orchestration stands out as superbly varied, brilliant and expressive and the melodic material is organically interwoven with the story. The only regrettable thing is that there is no libretto available. We get only a synopsis that gives the outline but leaves you in limbo as far as detailed understanding is concerned. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Anyway, relatively contemporary operas are rare guests in the record catalogues.  \u003ci\u003eShining Brow\u003c\/i\u003e, like Carlson's  \u003ci\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.musicweb-international.com\/classrev\/2009\/June09\/Carlson_sigcd154.htm\"\u003eAnna Karenina\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e that I reviewed a short while ago, are extremely valuable additions to a repertoire that far too seldom reaches beyond Puccini. Daron Hagen has no intention to challenge Puccini; he has his own musical world that is just as valid - and it shouldn't be less accessible to opera-lovers. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49655333159192,"sku":"730099902076","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1494661.jpg?v=1777579337"},{"product_id":"copland-prairie-journal-the-red-pony-suite-letter-from","title":"COPLAND: Prairie Journal \/ The Red Pony Suite \/ Letter from","description":"\u003cimg src=\"\/graphics\/p10s10.gif\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  Although it's played and recorded frequently, there is a genuine difference between a decent performance of Rodeo and a really excellent one such as we have here. This difference can be summed up in two words: rhythm and tempo. When it comes to rhythm, it's not merely a question of hitting the syncopations in the opening movement and concluding Hoedown, but of being both accurate and relaxed enough to let the music swing. This is a quality that Bernstein's performances always had, and JoAnn Falletta understands it too. This gives the music both the necessary verve in the outer sections and real balletic grace in the two inner ones, reminding us that we are, after all, hearing a story told through physical movement.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e When it comes to tempo, the issue is at once simpler and less impressionistic. In Buckaroo Holiday, speeds have to be quick enough to prevent the music from breaking up into discrete, detached bits. Once again, Falletta \u0026amp; Co. come through with flying colors. The music never sounds mechanical, disconnected, or excessively \"Stravinskian\". Copland disliked excessive sentimentality, but his music is never dry (the rich, warm, but clear sonics also help in this department). And what turns out to be a successful recipe for Rodeo works just as well in all of the other pieces here. Prairie Journal (a.k.a. Music for Radio) is one of the least known of Copland's \"Westerns\", but it's every bit as enjoyable as the three great ballets, and this is as fine a performance as you will hear anywhere. Letter from Home is an exercise in nostalgia that never turns overly sweet.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Best of all, perhaps, is The Red Pony, one of the great film scores of all time, and a glorious work that for some reason seldom gets played live. Copland's invention is of exceptionally high quality throughout, and once again you can hear from the unusual freshness of the opening bars how effortlessly Falletta and the Buffalo players get into the spirit of the music. There are so many delightful moments, from the raucous Circus Music to the unforgettable Walk to the Bunkhouse, a piece that has become the very essence of musical Americana. Finally, it's great to see one of the very popular pieces, like Rodeo, coupled with some less ubiquitous examples of Copland's genius. A wonderful disc! [10\/20\/2006]\u003cbr\u003e --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49705098019096,"sku":"636943924020","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/984676.jpg?v=1777587430"},{"product_id":"danielpour-the-passion-of-yeshua","title":"Danielpour: The Passion of Yeshua","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the 2020 GRAMMY award for Best Choral Performance and a nominee for Best Contemporary Classical Composition!\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRichard Danielpour’s dramatic oratorio The Passion of Yeshua- a work which has evolved over the last 25 years- is an intensely personal telling of the final hours of Christ on Earth. It incorporates texts from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian gospels inspiring extraordinarily beautiful music that stresses the need for human compassion and forgiveness. Danielpour returns to the scale and majesty of Bach in the oratorio, creating choruses that are intense and powerful, and giving both Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene a central place in a work of glowing spirituality. Conductor JoAnn Falletta considers The Passion of Yeshua to be “a classic for all time.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e -----\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Naxos’ world première recording of The Passion of Yeshua (2017) does full justice to Danielpour’s vision, thanks to the strong involvement and fine vocal talents of half a dozen soloists and the highly committed, knowing and knowledgeable conducting with which JoAnn Falletta shapes the performances of the UCLA Chamber Singers and the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e – Infodad.com\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49705109848344,"sku":"636943988527","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3782382-2544226.jpg?v=1777585491"},{"product_id":"brahms-symphony-no-4-hungarian-dances-nos-2-4-9","title":"Brahms: Symphony No. 4 - Hungarian Dances Nos. 2, 4-9","description":"\u003cb\u003eTop Brahms!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Here it is: the final release in the set of Brahms symphonies from Marin Alsop with the London Philharmonic. Previous reviews have praised just about every aspect of this new Naxos cycle, and while I admit to arriving somewhat late on the scene I have to admit that all expectations are realised.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e So that you know where I’m coming from, my formative introduction to the symphonies of Brahms came with the 1983 live cycle on DG with Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic. The influence of those initial impressions of intensity and edgy freedom of expression are of course hard to shake, but there is always more than one way to skin a great piece of music, and later on I was as likely to be found settling down with a good book and Herbert von Karajan’s 1989 recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic. Other versions have passed my way as well – Günter Wand’s 2001 RCA cycle with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra for instance, and those lovely old Bruno Walter recordings with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra now on Sony, which still sound surprisingly good given their vintage.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e If done properly, Brahms’s symphonic writing means that you will have read the same page a multitude of times in that ‘good book’ you have in your hand while listening. The content and meaning of the words will remain as obscure as at the first attempt as your ears and attention are absorbed and enthralled by the lush musical garden that gradually unfolds through your loudspeakers, or in my case headphones. With Alsop and the LPO you might as well give up on reading at all, and give yourself over to a feast of wonderful music-making.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Marin Alsop’s tempi are measured and sustained in what seems to me an ideal way in this symphony. The first movement seems at first urbane and restrained, but the ceiling is set high, and there is plenty of room for bite and drama in the music – never hurried or unstable, but with a gloss of perfect preparation which seems to allow the listener to plunge directly and deeply into Brahms’s inspired vision. The same is true of the second Andante moderato movement, in which the winds initially shine with lush resonance. Intonation is crucial here, and the LSO’s wind and brass are spot on – playing as one. The timing and anticipation is beautifully measured in advance of the ‘big tune’ at 8:55, which is turned out here without histrionics, but as a noble and almost infinite field of sound – a bounteous source for a composer like Elgar, whose own ‘Enigma’ variations spring immediately to mind.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A lightness of touch is required of the third movement’s Allegro giocoso, and Alsop blows away any cobwebs which may have gathered in a sweep of freshness. There’s a slightly anticipatory rhythm at 4:23 caused by an edit, but this will hopefully only be noticeable to fully trained and overly picky reviewers. The final movement brings back the measured, sustained feel of the first, but with that extra turbulence, and those quicksilver touches of detail in the orchestration pointed subtly and superbly by all concerned in this recording. I was wondering if that slow central section wasn’t just a little too slow and lingering, but the re-entry of the full orchestra at around 6:00 is made all the more magical for being delayed for that extra few ounces of ‘down-time’, and the final run builds in intensity to create a fully satisfying close.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The Hungarian Dances presented here are the ‘leftovers’ from Brahms’s own orchestrations of nos. 1, 3 and 10, covered in volume 2 of this series. The dances here have been newly orchestrated by Peter Breiner in an imaginative commission from Naxos especially for this recording. Breiner’s versions respect Brahms’s orchestral resonances for the most part, but inject quite a bit of extra jazzy impact and violinistic Hungarian idiom, emphasising some of those seriously fun syncopations with extra percussion and brass. There is a danger of creating a set of little P.D.Q. Bach monsters here, but with the essence of Brahms’s ideas held largely intact I admire the way Breiner has stretched these pieces just enough to make them into genuine orchestral showpieces, without turning the smiles they bring into disrespectful guffaws.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I think the way is clear – I simply must have the rest of this set.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e -- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49705637773592,"sku":"747313023370","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1136429.jpg?v=1777576120"},{"product_id":"tyberg-symphony-no-2-piano-sonata-no-2","title":"Tyberg: Symphony No. 2 - Piano Sonata No. 2","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eTYBERG \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12b\"\u003eSymphony No. 2. Piano Sonata No. 2\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"SUPER12b\"\u003e1 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"SUPER12\"\u003e1\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eFabio Bidini (pn); JoAnn Falletta, cond; Buffalo PO \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e NAXOS 8.572822 (74: 47) \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI defy the average educated listener not to call out the name of Anton Bruckner within seconds of the start of Marcel Tyberg’s Second Symphony. The cut of the melodies, the rhythms, the sectional construction, and the scoring are utterly characteristic of the Viennese master—who died in 1896, three years after Tyberg was born. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eMost\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e curious. That impression continues throughout the first movement, and off and on (but mostly on) throughout the entire symphony. Indeed, the thing that is least Brucknerian about Tyberg’s symphony, which was composed in 1927, is that it is barely 42 minutes long. (To be fair, there’s a bit of Korngold as the symphony reaches its conclusion.) In other words, Tyberg concludes his movements just when Bruckner would have been getting his second wind. I am astonished that Bruckner’s name does not come up once in the entirety of Edward Yadzinski’s booklet note. Perhaps he thought mentioning it would have been the epitome of obviousness. I’m not really suggesting that Tyberg’s Second is on a par with Bruckner’s symphonies—at times it sounds a little awkwardly put together, and too terse—but it is a fascinating, fascinating near miss, and really very enjoyable, and if this disc doesn’t get wide exposure, at least because Tyberg’s unknown symphony is so doggedly familiar (!), then there is no justice in the world. Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic play the heck out of it, by the way, and Naxos’s engineering is lustrous. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Piano Sonata No. 2 is no less fine. Bruckner wrote no piano sonatas, I believe, but Brahms completed three of them, and there are times when Tyberg’s sturdy, 33-minute sonata sounds as if it is aiming to be “Brahms’s Fourth.” The hyper-masculine opening gesture, for example, and the feminine response that it receives, would hardly be out of place in Brahms. Other influences appear in this sonata, however, including, strangely enough, Szymanowski. Again, call this music derivative if you like, but there’s no escaping that Tyberg’s lack of innovation is not dull but really rather delightful, given the attractiveness of the material. Pianist Bidini makes a very good case for it, playing it with plenty of romantic temperament, and with steely wrists and fingers. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI missed Naxos’s earlier Tyberg release (8.572236) in which his Third Symphony is paired with his Piano Trio. Jerry Dubins and Robert Markow both welcomed it strongly; in fact, it made the latter reviewer’s Want List in 2011. There also was a feature article in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eFanfare\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e 34: 2 in which Falletta discussed Tyberg. To make a long story short, Tyberg, who had a Jewish relative several generations back, was a victim of the Nazis and died in 1944. He spent his young years in Vienna, but around the time of the Second Symphony, he relocated to what today is part of Italy. Shortly before his deportation, he entrusted his music manuscripts to a friend, and they were passed on to that friend’s son, who ended up in Buffalo. After spending years trying to interest various conductors in Tyberg’s scores, he finally attracted Falletta’s attention. She recognized the music’s worth, and if a Tyberg revival is in the works, we can thank her, and the efforts of the Marcel Tyberg Musical Legacy Fund of the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies in Buffalo. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eKnowing that I have a tendency to be excitable, I don’t want to overdo my praise for this music or for this release, but glorioski, this is enjoyable stuff. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Raymond Tuttle \u003c\/span\u003e   \u003cbr\u003e -----\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eMarcel Tyberg’s Second Symphony sounds a bit like Bruckner for people who hate Bruckner. It features thematic material uncannily similar to Tyberg’s Austrian predecessor, only married to a more traditional, pithy approach to form. It lasts just 42 minutes, and so in comparison confirms Bruckner’s own originality, or incompetence, depending on your perspective. There’s nothing here that might make you sit up and say, “Aha, that must be Tyberg,” but it is beautifully scored, well-made music nonetheless. The Adagio is particularly lovely, basically diatonic in harmony, but with tunes that never go exactly where you expect them to. Had Tyberg survived the Second World War and written more in this vein, we might go so far as to call it “personal”.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The Piano Sonata No. 2 dwells squarely in the world of Beethoven and Brahms, but again with remarkable success. It’s a large work in four movements, and even more than in the symphony the centerpiece is an Adagio drawn on a very large scale. The finale, so often the Achilles’ heel in Romantic music, is actually the shortest movement, but full of contrast and quite satisfying, thus revealing that Tyberg’s classical sympathies go beyond mere imitation.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The sonata is very well played by Fabio Bidini, a pianist who takes its challenges in stride and shapes each movement quite effectively. As in the previous release in this series, JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic take charge of the orchestral component, offering a performance of the symphony full of character and conviction. The Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies in Buffalo sponsored this recording through its Marcel Tyberg Musical Legacy Fund. That such a thing even exists is just one of those facts that makes you feel good about life, as does Tyberg’s music. Go for it.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e -- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49705713565976,"sku":"747313282272","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/2290488.jpg?v=1777570037"},{"product_id":"kod-ly-orchestral-works","title":"Kodály: Orchestral Works","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/blog.naxos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/8.573838.mp3\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat’s not to love? JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic offer another appealing and wholly successful program. Granted, there are wilder version of the Dances of Galánta out there, particularly from the likes of Reiner (Sony-mono) and Ormandy (also Sony), but Falletta’s view of the work is as cogent in its steady build to a brilliant climax as just about any. She’s even more effective in a remarkably well-sustained and unified Peacock Variations, and an irresistibly lively Dances of Marosszék.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBest of all, we get a virtuosic and characterful performance of the relatively rare Concerto for Orchestra instead of the obvious Háry János Suite. That makes this collection unusually generous as well as desirable, especially when the playing of the orchestra clearly rises to the challenges that Kodály presents. The sonics, as usual from this source, as very good indeed. Here are seventy-seven minutes of music that you really can sit down and play straight through. Give it a try and listen for yourself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49705749119256,"sku":"747313383870","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3756895_fe6dd0c0-cd28-45e1-a14a-6d8a72b3258e.jpg?v=1777763229"},{"product_id":"schmitt-la-tragzdie-de-salomz-musique-sur-leau","title":"Schmitt: La Tragédie de Salomé - Musique sur l'eau","description":"Florent Schmitt was a student of Massenet and Fauré, and winner of the coveted Prix de Rome. His impressionistic style blends influences ranging from Debussy to Wagner, with references to Stravinsky and other contemporaries. Conceived as a ballet but revised as a symphonic poem, La Tragédie de Salomé depicts Salome’s dangerous seductiveness with subtle magnificence. Narrative symbolism also applies to the evocative word painting of the exquisite Musique sur l’eau. The perilous saga of Oriane et le Prince d’Amour contrasts with the poetic tapestry of orchestral colors in Légende, in a version that replaces the original solo saxophone with violin.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  -----\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Although Florent Schmitt lived until 1958 and took an interest in musical trends of the day, his fundamental style never really changed. It tightened up a bit under the influence of Stravinsky but remained essentially late Romantic. JoAnn Falletta has been an unfailingly successful advocate of Schmitt's on disc. There are quite a few versions of La tragédie de Salomé available, but none more refined and silky than this one. The Buffalo Philharmonic is a polished orchestra and has a wonderful satin feel for French music. The smooth acoustic of Kleinhans Hall and Naxos’s customary transparency do the rest.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  All told, this is a winning release. In the vanishing wake of dodecaphonic music, where process was everything, we seem to be rediscovering beauty and meaning in composers who were, so to speak, left behind. More power, then, to Florent Schmitt! \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  – Fanfare","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49705751609624,"sku":"747313413874","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3864843-2646885.jpg?v=1777566072"},{"product_id":"massenet-visions-overtures-les-frinnyes-suite-1","title":"Massenet: Visions - Overtures - Les Érinnyes Suite","description":"Jules Massenet is famous for his series of 27 operas that include Manon and Werther, but he also wrote a significant portfolio of orchestral music which include ballets, orchestral suites and incidental music. The works presented here show his versatility and lyricism and include the one-act ballet Espada, saturated in Iberian color and beguiling rhythms, as well as Les Érinnyes (‘The Furies’) with a vivid sequence of contrasting themes. Modeled after Liszt, Visions is a poème-symphonique of both ethereal and dramatic power.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  -----\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  Between JoAnn Falletta and Jean-Luc Tingaud, Naxos seems to be cornering the market when it comes to unusual but worthy repertoire. Tingaud’s specialty, unsurprisingly, has (thus far) focused on French music, and this Massenet collection includes some pretty nifty and rare titles. Visions, for example, is a symphonic poem in Lisztian style dating from 1891, and it’s an imposing and impressive fourteen-minute hunk of good, romantic music. Brumaire is a powerful, militant overture that belies the composer’s reputation as little more than a soft orchestral voluptuary.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  The Espada Suite is another in the seemingly endless series of French works with a Spanish flavor, and it’s none the worse for that. Best of all, perhaps, is the incidental music to Érinnyes (The Furies). Dating from 1876, this substantial half hour of music features an extended “Scène religieuse” and a three-movement divertissement full of memorable and vigorous ideas. The program concludes with the darkly dramatic overture Phèdre–like all of the music here very well played and conducted with real conviction. The sonics, too, do the music proud. I love this stuff, and I suspect that you will too. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  – ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49709505413400,"sku":"747313417872","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3851255-2608889.jpg?v=1777566312"},{"product_id":"villa-lobos-symphonies-nos-8-9-14","title":"Villa-Lobos: Symphonies Nos. 8, 9 \u0026 11","description":"\u003ca class=\"links\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.naxos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/8.573777-1.mp3\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eListen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  By the 1940s Heitor Villa-Lobos was widely recognized as Latin America’s greatest composer. Working in the United States gave him new perspectives, and his later symphonies move away from the folk influences and exotic effects of works written in the 1920s and 30s, such as the Bachianas Brasileiras, towards more concise, sometimes neo-classical, models. The Eighth and Nineth share a transparent lightness of touch while the Eleventh, described as a work of ‘immediate charm,’ is the perfect introduction to the later work of Villa-Lobos. Since its first concert in 1954 the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra has developed into one of today’s leading orchestras. An indispensable part of Sao Paulo and Brazillian culture that promotes deep cultural and social transformation, the orchestra has released over 60 recordings and has toured throughout Brazil, Latin Aerica, the United States, and Europe. In 2012 Marin Alsop was engaged as principal conductor, and in 2013 she was appointed music director. That same year the orchestra went on a fourth European tour, performing to great acclaim at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the PHilharmonie in Berlin, and at the Royal Festival Hall in London.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  -----\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  Isaac Karabtchevsky's sure-footed pacing conveys a deep understanding of these scores. The orchestra is wonderfully on point, which makes an enormous difference in music as finely shaded as this. An absolutely essential release.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  – Gramophone","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49709663846680,"sku":"747313377770","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3647498.jpg?v=1777565877"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/collections\/3_5.png?v=1773066674","url":"https:\/\/hbdirect.com\/collections\/celebrating-female-conductors-alsop-falletta.oembed?page=2","provider":"HBDirect","version":"1.0","type":"link"}