8.573297

Drawing on the adventures of Byron’s Childe Harold and the composer’s own Italian experiences as a Prix de Rome winner, Harold en Italie was intended for the great violinist Paganini who, having initially rejected the work, later repented, giving it his highest praise. The brilliant concert overtures Benvenuto Cellini and Le carnaval romain are among Berlioz’s most popular works. Quickly taken up by several celebrated violinists of the time, the elegant Rêverie et Caprice is his only work for solo violin and orchestra. Leonard Slatkin’s Lyon recording of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (8.572886) has been acclaimed as “quite simply one of the best on disc” by MusicWeb International.

Simultaneously available on Blu-ray: BERLIOZ Harold en Italie NBD0042

8.572763

A series of powerful, largely radical works in the early 1920s saw Hindemith established as Germany’s leading young composer. In 1936 he was asked by choreographer and dancer Léonide Massine to collaborate on a ballet project, and Hindemith proposed scenes from the life of St Francis of Assisi. The resulting ballet, Nobilissima Visione (The Noblest Vision), is a work of lyricism, elegy and majesty. The Five Pieces for String Orchestra is an earlier, spirited work dating from 1927.

8.660343-44

WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDING

A highly regarded composer in his day and considered the equal of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, Saverio Mercadante pioneered the transformation of bel canto opera into real music drama. He wrote the operatic tragedy I Briganti (The Brigands) not only to prove himself to the Parisian public but as a direct challenge to Bellini’s I puritani, premièred the previous year. Mercadante’s individual style of canto fiorito and distinctive theatricality demonstrate that opera need not be a mere succession of virtuoso vocal arias, and it paved the way for Verdi’s later dramas. Prepared from a new critical edition, this production was described as ‘outstanding’ by The New York Times.

8.573200

*WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDING

Jacques Loussier achieved immense worldwide popular success combining the music of J.S. Bach and jazz improvisation with his Play Bach Trio. Loussier’s focus has since turned more towards composing, his predilection for fusing jazz and classical elements expressed at its most economical in these two Violin Concertos. Eloquent expressiveness and colourful use of percussion characterise the First Concerto, while the Indian influence in the Second Concerto emerges through violin improvisation and rhythmic counterpoint from the tabla. Like Loussier, Paderewski was a piano virtuoso who turned to composition in later life, the Violin Sonata being one of his finest earlier works.

8.573223

Gabriel Fauré’s chamber works, long overshadowed by his popular Requiem (Naxos 8.550765), are regaining their rightful place. This new release from theKungsbacka Piano Trio follows their recording of Fauré’s First Piano Quartet andother chamber works (8.573042), described by Gramophone as ‘a delectableway into Fauré’s chamber music’. The programme features the less frequentlyheard original version, with clarinet, of the Piano Trio, the Second Piano Quartet, which includes an evocation of the bells of Cadirac near the composer’s home, the Romances sans paroles, described by Marcel Proust as ‘intoxicating’ and one of Fauré’s most famous works, the Berceuse from the Dolly Suite.virtuoso who turned to composition in later life, the Violin Sonata being one of his finest earlier works.

8.225352

*WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDINGS

The composition of string quartets ran as a continuous thread throughout Louis Spohr’s life, and he used the Quartet No. 10 in A major as his ‘parade horse’, playing it frequently in the Viennese salons to show off his skills both as a violinist and composer to audiences accustomed to Haydn, Mozart and

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Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein are internationally renowned for their GRAMMY® award-winning opera Elmer Gantry (2007). Their follow-up collaboration, Parables (2010) is a cantata for soloists, a 200-voice choir and 80-piece orchestra. The attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001 haunts its writing but the use of passages from the Torah, New Testament and Koran seeks to bind the major faiths’ commonality, hopeful of healing and reconciliation. In this staged performance young dancers, costumes, and projection emphasize the music’s powerfully theatrical impact.