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Gaetano Donizetti’s ‘mini opera’ Aristea follows the 19th century fashion for composing celebratory scenic works with a large cast and full orchestra, in this case to honour Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies. Librettist Giovanni Schmidt recycled Aristea from an earlier abandoned opera set in idyllic Greek surroundings. This tells the classical story of enforced separation of a father from his daughter, their subsequent confusions and final happy reunion. Donizetti’s early style was influenced by Rossini but is nevertheless independent and innovative, often hinting at his later operatic masterpieces.

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Dohnányi’s powerful Second Symphony was composed toward the end of the Second World War but its large canvas reflects not so much his wartime experience as his own artistic credo as a Romantic composer. Of the symphony and its philosophy he wrote: “The goal is the end of the glorious fight. The goal is death; life is a struggle”, and in it he crafted a passionate monument to the Romanticism he espoused, heard here in its final revised version. The two songs for baritone and orchestra have been very rarely heard, and were revived by Alexander Jiménez with the Florida State University Symphony Orchestra in 2013.

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This program includes some of the least known masterpieces from Ernest Bloch’s nearly 30 works for orchestra. Macbeth: Two Symphonic Interludes is an intoxicating and passionate distillation of Shakespeare’s powerful drama. In Memoriam is a brief elegy dedicated to the pianist Ada Clement, while the Three Jewish Poems were written when Bloch was mourning the death of his father. Originally conceived as a third concerto grosso, Bloch’s last Symphony, in E flat major, is an at times emotionally turbulent and deeply spiritual work containing passages of harmonic acerbity.

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The centerpiece of this programme is the first ever recording of the Hiawatha Melodrama, a concert work for narrator and orchestra designed to show the kinship between Dvořák’s New World Symphony and Longfellow’s poem The Song of Hiawatha, which Dvořák said had inspired him in the symphony. It takes music from the symphony, as well as passages from the American Suite and Violin Sonatina, and fuses them with the poem, which is recited by a bass-baritone. Also included is music by Arthur Farwell, who was influenced by Dvořák, and was a proponent of Native American music. This recording thus celebrates the crosscurrent of influences between the Czech composer and American music and culture.

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A child prodigy as a violin virtuoso, Ferdinand David became concertmaster of Felix Mendelssohn’s Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and was renowned throughout Europe as a soloist and educator. David’s 20 Virtuoso Studies, based on those for piano by his friend, and colleague Ignaz Moscheles, are brilliant and completely idiomatic transcriptions for the violin. Melodies of great emotional depth and refined sensuality characterize the Caprices Op. 9, often demanding lightning speed from the soloist.