Newsletter 150  
March 2009  

This month Naxos is delighted to present a stunning selection of new releases, including the new 7-CD box set of Haydn’s oratorios, and an exciting range of other CD titles from the Baroque to contemporary works.

There’s also a mouth-watering range of titles from Capriccio, DACAPO, Phoenix Edition and OUR Recordings, labels which Naxos proudly distributes worldwide.

See our outstanding new CDs of music by Shostakovich, Schubert, Schmidt, Martucci and Sheng featuring some of the world’s great orchestras for an ideal Mother’s Day gift.

And why not treat yourself to some of Naxos’s acclaimed recordings of Bach’s Passions, Handel’s Messiah and other sacred music for Easter?

Please take a moment to browse through this Newsletter—you’re sure to find something irresistible!

For all the latest News, Reviews, and a sneak preview of our Upcoming Releases, please visit naxos.com.

Naxos DVDs | Naxos CDs | Naxos Historical CDs | Naxos Distributed Labels

Distributed Labels: Capriccio | Dacapo | Phoenix Edition | OUR Recordings


  Naxos DVDs

In February, Naxos released two outstanding opera DVDs: Donizetti’s great bel canto masterpiece Lucrezia Borgia and Schubert’s rarely-performed Alfonso und Estrella with an all-star cast conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
More Naxos Opera DVDs


 Naxos CDs

8.660215  RAVEL L’enfant et les sortilèges, Shéhérazade
Julie Boulianne • Philippe Castagner • Julie Cox • Genevieve Despres •
Ian Greenlaw • Kirsten Gunlogson • Agathe Martel • Cassandre Prevost • Kevin Short • Chattanooga Boys Choir • Chicago Symphony Chorus • Nashville Symphony Chorus • Nashville Symphony Orchestra •
Alastair Willis


Ravel’s richly-scored opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Spells) is a lyric fantasy whose cast includes fairy tale characters, crockery, plants and little animals which come to life. It is paired with his ravishing and enduringly popular song cycle Shéhérazade.
8.507008  HAYDN The Oratorios (7-CD Box Set)

Die Schöpfung (The Creation)
Max Ciolek • Sunhae Im • Jan Kobow • Hanno Muller-Brachmann •
Christine Wehler • Cologne Vocal Ensemble • Capella Augustina •
Andreas Spering

‘If you’re looking for a good, period-instrument version of The Creation, the great oratorio by Haydn, at budget price, look no further.’
Scena

Die Jahrzeiten (The Seasons)
Andreas Karasiak • Stephan MacLeod • Rubens, Sibylla • Gewandhaus Chamber Choir • Leipzig Chamber Orchestra • Morten Schuldt-Jensen
‘This Naxos set of Die Jahrzeiten, in German, is given with modern instruments, and very well they play, aided by a fine clear recording.’
International Record Review

Il Ritorno di Tobia (The Return of Tobias)
Nikolay Borchev • Anders J. Dahlin • Ann Hallenberg • Roberta Invernizzi • Sophie Karthäuser • Cologne Vocal Ensemble • Capella Augustina •
Andreas Spering

‘Haydn lovers should snap it up as a matter of urgency.’ – Gramophone
 
OTHER HAYDN 200th ANNIVERSARY BOX SETS ALSO AVAILABLE:

8.506019  Complete Concertos (6 CDs)
Cologne Chamber Orchestra • Helmut Müller-Brühl • Augustin Hadelich • Dmitri Babanov • Harald Hoeren • Ariadne Daskalakis • Jürgen Schuster • Benoit Fromanger • Maria Kliegel • Sebastian Knauer • Ketil Haugsand • Christian Hommel • Ingo Nelken • Daniel Rothert •
Philipp Spätling
8.501042  Complete Piano Sonatas (10 CDs)
Jeno Jandó

‘He shows himself a complete master of this repertoire.’
Penguin Guide
8.502400  Complete String Quartets (25 CDs)
Kodály Quartet

‘The Naxos recordings by the Kodály Quartet are outstanding in every way...’
Gramophone
8.503400  Complete Symphonies (34 CDs)
Sinfonia Finlandia • Patrick Gaullois • Northern Chamber Orchestra • Nicholas Ward • Cologne Chamber Orchestra • Helmut Müller-Brühl • Toronto Chamber Orchestra • Kevin Mallon • Nikolaus Esterházy Sinfonia • Béla Drahos • Capella Istropolitana • Barry Wordsworth
8.572051  SCHUBERT Symphony ‘Death and the Maiden’ (arr. Stein), Symphony No 8 ‘Unfinished’ (completed Newbould & Venzago)
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra • JoAnn Falletta

Andy Stein’s orchestration of Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet sounds as if Schubert himself had conceived it in this form. The reconstruction of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony is based on fragments from the composer’s notebooks and segments from his Rosamunde incidental music.
8.572082  SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No 11 ‘1905'
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra • Vasily Petrenko

Charismatic young conductor Vasily Petrenko launches his Shostakovich Symphonies series with the Eleventh, a highly charged depiction of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre of over two hundred peaceful demonstrators by Czarist soldiers outside the Winter Palace in St Petersburg in 1905.
8.570828  SCHMIDT Symphony No 1, Notre Dame Suite
Malmö Symphony Orchestra • Vassily Sinaisky

Franz Schmidt’s finely crafted Symphony No. 1, grandiose in scale and optimistic in mood, recalls the masterpieces of other great Romantic composers, Brahms, Bruckner and Reger, and won the Beethoven Prize in 1900. His opera Notre Dame, based on Victor Hugo’s novel won him an international reputation.
8.570929  MARTUCCI Symphony No 1, Nocturne, Andante, Canzonetta, Giga
Andrea Noferini • Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma • Francesco La Vecchia

The foremost Italian orchestral composer of the late nineteenth century, as well as an accomplished pianist and conductor, Giuseppe Martucci was one of the first of a line of composers who were determined to break away from opera’s dominance in Italian musical life.
8.559610  SHENG Red Silk Dance, Tibetan Swing,
H’UN (Lacerations), The Phoenix

Bright Sheng • Shana Blake Hill • Seattle Symphony Orchestra • Gerard Schwarz

The Phoenix was inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen tale, the mythical bird symbolizing for Chinese-American composer Bright Sheng ‘the muse of all peoples’. Aggressive fervor seeks meditative peace in H’un, ‘a searing portrait of the Cultural Revolution in China…deeply affecting.’ (New York Times)
 
ALSO AVAILABLE:

8.570601  SHENG Spring Dreams, 3 Fantasies, Tibetan Dance
Cho-liang Lin • Andre-Michel Schub• Bright Sheng • Erin Svoboda • Singapore Chinese Orchestra • Yeh Tsung
8.570440  RIES Piano Concerto ‘Farwell to England’,
Grand Variations on Rule Britannia

Christopher Hinterhuber • Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra • Uwe Grodd

Intensely lyrical and yet displaying at times a rugged Beethovenian grandeur, Ries’s concertos are works of impressive musical stature. The three works featured on this recording are all associated with Ries’s English period.
8.669020-21  HAGEN Shining Brow
Tony Barton • Matthew Curran • James Demler • Elem Eley • Deborah Fleischer • Eric Fleischer • Robert Frankenberry • Brenda Harris • Gilda Lyons • Robert Orth • Jennifer Lynn Reckamp • Elaine Valby • Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus • Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra • JoAnn Falletta

Popular with audiences and critics alike, Shining Brow has been hailed as a masterpiece full of fresh ideas, and is frequently performed. ‘Hagen has a gift for the big tune, and he serves up some beauties’ (New York Times). ‘Its libretto is unusually inventive and poetic’ (Capital Times).
8.559604  GREY Enemy Slayer - A Navajo Oratorio
Scott Hendricks • Phoenix Symphony Chorus • Phoenix Symphony Orchestra • Michael Christie

This recording of Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio is of the world première performance of the first oratorio based on an indigenous North American creation story. ‘Mark Grey’s score is perfectly crafted, impeccably paced, beautifully scored’ (The Arizona Republic).
8.570950  A SCARLATTI Euridice dall'Inferno, La Concettione della Beata Vergine, and works for solo cello and harpsichord
Ars Lyrica Houston • Matthew Dirst

For its Naxos début Ars Lyrica presents première recordings of two of Alessandro Scarlatti’s vocal works: Euridice dall’Inferno and La concettione della Beata Vergine. The Houston-based early music ensemble has gained praise for its ‘zestful music-making’. (Houston Chronicle).
8.572252-53  CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO 24 Caprichos de Goya
Zoran Dukic

Originally conceived for Andrés Segovia, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s 24 Caprichos de Goya has seldom been recorded complete. Zoran Dukic’s spectacular virtuosity, profound musicianship and artistic maturity have won him more first prizes in international competitions than anyone else in the world.
8.570587  CARULLI Works for Guitar and Piano Vol 1
Franza Halász • Débora Halász

Ferdinando Carulli wrote the first complete classical guitar method, which continues to be used today. Franz and Débora Halász have been praised as ‘a young and exciting team…that persuasively combines piano and guitar’. (American Record Guide).
8.570370  TURINA Piano Music Vol 5
Jordi Masó

Jordi Masó’s acclaimed series of Joaquin Turina’s Piano Music continues with the evocative Spanish Tales, Souvenirs of Old Spain and Silhouettes, consolidating the young pianist’s reputation as a leading interpreter of this distinctively Iberian repertoire.
 
ALSO AVAILABLE:

Vol 1 - 8.557150
Features his Danzas fantásticas, Danzas gitanas and Danzas andaluzas.
Vol 2 - 8.557438
Includes the early Romantic Sonata, the Fantasy Sonata and the dazzling Rincón mágico.
Vol 3 - 8.557684
Works from two of the composer’s principal sources of inspiration: women and his native city, Seville.
Vol 4 - 8.570026
Focuses on the child’s universe: Niñerías evoke the composer’s own Andalusian childhood.
8.570718  CIMAROSA Piano Sonatas Vol 1
Victor Sangiorgio

Domenico Cimarosa was the most famous and popular Italian opera composer of the second half of the 18th Century. Although nothing is known about the origins of his keyboard sonatas, they are attractive, small-scale works probably intended for study purposes or for domestic performance.
8.570563  TELEMANN Fantasies for solo violin
Augustin Hadelich

Highly characterful and unfailingly inventive, Telemann’s Twelve Fantasies for Solo Violin explore the possibilities of solo violin writing. American Record Guide proclaimed that ‘the future of great violin playing is safe and very bright in Augustin Hadelich's 24-year-old hands’.
 
ALSO AVAILABLE:

Haydn’s Violin Concertos (8.570483), recorded after he won the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Augustin Hadelich is joined by the Cologne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Helmut Müller-Brühl.
8.570284 DOWLAND The Queen’s Galliard
Nigel North

DOWLAND LUTE EDITION VOL 4 On this fourth and final volume, North presents a selection of dances and songs by the composer celebrated as the ‘English Orpheus’.
 
ALSO AVAILABLE:

Vol 1 - 8.557586
Includes the 7 Fantasies in which the composer gives free rein to his fertile imagination and wonderful melodic gift.
Vol 2 - 8.557862
Includes the Lachrimae Pavan, and Semper Dowland Semper Dolens with its quotations from his songs.
Vol 3 - 8.570449
Pavans, Galliards and Almains, including the beautiful and serious Pavana Doulant.
8.570758  BAJORAS Symphony-Diptych, Violin Concerto
Rusne Mataityte • Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra • Gintaras Rinkevicius

The Symphony-Diptych, which draws on themes from the composer’s opera Lamb of God, is notable for its characterful writing for wind instruments. The lyrical Violin Concerto features expressive monologues, capricious rhythms and echoes of ancient Lithuanian songs.
MARCOPOLO 8.225315  SPOHR String Quartets Nos. 9 and 17
Moscow Philharmonic Concertino String Quartet

Popular with contemporary audiences and influential during the first half of the 19th century, these suavely imaginative chamber works are now once more becoming appreciated for their originality, emotional light and shade, and historical importance.

 Naxos Historical CDs

8.111331  DVORAK Slavonic Dances, Carnival Overture
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra • Vaclav Talich (1935 recordings)

For almost forty years the name of Václav Talich was synonymous with the great orchestra he conducted, the Czech Philharmonic. When he made these records in November 1935, he was at the height of his career as the most charismatic Czech conductor in history.
8.112020  Rachmaninov Piano Solo Recordings Vol 1 - Victor Recordings (1925-1942)
Sergei Rachmaninov

RACHMANINOV EDITION VOL 1   Rachmaninov’s formidable piano technique was notable for its precision, rhythmic drive, refined legato, crystalline clarity and sensitivity to melodic line. While avoiding sentimentality, he sought and expressed music’s emotional essence. Even today, his recordings remain classics
8.111329-30  J STRAUSS II The Gypsy Baron
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf • Nicolai Gedda • Erich Kunz • Erika Koth • Hermann Prey • Monica Sinclair • Gertrud Burgsthaler-Schuster • Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra • Otto Ackermann (1954 Recording)

Strauss’s The Gypsy Baron is a colourful comic opera whose vividly drawn characters include a gypsy girl who turns out to be a Turkish Pasha’s daughter, a fortune-telling Romany queen, an exiled landowner, ridiculous local dignitaries, hussars and, inevitably, a band of gypsies.


 Naxos Distributed Labels
Capriccio, DACAPO, Phoenix Edition, OUR Recordings are distributed worldwide by Naxos. The following titles have recently been added to naxos.com. They include some back-catalogue classics and some wonderful new releases.
More great releases from these labels

  Capriccio

Capriccio C51042  MOZART Piano Concertos Nos 9, 13, 21 & 23
Linda Nicholson, piano • Cappella Coloniensis • Nicholas Kraemer, conductor

These four sparkling piano concertos, from the virtuosic ‘Jeunehomme’ Concerto of 1777 to the great A major Concerto of 1786, come vividly to life under the hands of soloist Linda Nicholson, ably accompanied by the famous Cappella Coloniensis whose period-instrument recordings rank among the most exciting available.

Capriccio C10572  Evergreens, Jochen Kowalski Vocal Recital - ERWIN/JARY/SCHULTZE/DOELLE/MACKEBEN/CASUCCI/BENATZKY
Jochen Kowalski • Daniel Morgenroth • Wilhelm Neuhaus • Cologne Salon Orchestra

This classics 1995 recordings showcases the artistry of countertenor Jochen Kowalski who has worked with such conductors as Gary Bertini, Neville Marriner, Vittorio Negri, Zubin Mehta and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. As the title suggests, the songs on this album are a bouquet of delightful vocal favourites.
Capriccio Catalogue

 Dacapo

DACAPO 8.226019  SCHUTZ Lukas-Passion (St Luke Passion)
Jakob Bloch Jespersen • Johan Linderoth • Ars Nova Copenhagen •
Paul Hillier


Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier here present the first recording in a series devoted to the narrative works (Historiae) of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672). The Danish vocal ensemble thus celebrates Denmark’s proud connection with this German master who was appointed Kapellmeister to King Christian IV and worked at the Danish court for two periods over the course of eleven years.
DACAPO 8.226066  GADE Violin Sonatas Nos 1-3
Christina Astrand, violin • Per Salo, piano

Niels W. Gade (1817-1890) was beyond doubt the best known and most widely recognized Danish composer of the nineteenth century and an excellent violinist. His fondness for the instrument is most in evidence in the works for violin and piano, among which the three sonatas trace Gade's stylistic development over 40 years.
DACAPO 8.226505  JORGENSEN Moon-pain, Goblin Dance,
Lisbon Revisited

Iris Oja, mezzo-soprano • klettWood • Remix Ensemble • Paul Hillier

In his most important work to date, the song cycle Moon-pain (2003-8) for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble, Klaus Ib Jørgensen (b. 1967) has set the moonlit, dreaming poems of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) to music that is both beautiful and disturbing.
DACAPO 8.226544  PADE Aquarellen über das Meer, 4 Illustrations
Gert Sørensen, percussion • Richard Krug, recitation • Hele Davies Mikkelborg, harp

With this CD DACAPO presents two works by Else Marie Pade (b. 1924) that have never before been released, or even played in a concert. They are a mainly acoustic piece, Aquarellen über das Meer I-XXI on a poem Das Meer (The Sea) and 21 water colours, both by Pade’s friend Hans Georg Sønderlund Hansen.

Dacapo Catalogue

 Phoenix Edition

Phoenix171  Soprano Cantatas
Emma Kirkby, Sophie Boulin, Isabelle Poulenard, sopranos • Hans-Martin Linde, transverse flute • Cappella Coloniensis • Hans-Martin Linde, Ferdinand Leitner, conductors

It is fascinating to encounter, towards the end of the first decade of the 21st century, recordings from the 1980s. Emma Kirkby, who is still active today, was considered to be the uncrowned queen of emotional, instrumentally-led vocal tone, which was seen as paradigmatic for performances of baroque music.
Phoenix173  Overtures
Cappella Coloniensis • Hans-Martin Linde, conductor

Cappella Coloniensis delivers an impressive example for the compositional art of the German Baroque with orchestral works by Graupner, Heinichen and Fasch—all born in the 1680s—as well as Johann Gottlieb Graun (1703–1771).
Phoenix174  Classical Symphonies
Cappella Coloniensis • Hans-Martin Linde, conductor

This CD brings together recordings by Cappella Coloniensis with repertoire which was typical for this orchestra during the ‘80s. Music from the Renaissance and Baroque as well as from the period of Viennese Classicism by Haydn, Mozart and their contemporaries profited from the sleek, clear sound of original instruments.
Phoenix175  CHERUBINI Dirge on the Death of Joseph Haydn
Marilyn Schmiege, soprano • Martyn Hill, Paolo Barbacini, tenor • Cappella Coloniensis • Gabriele Ferro, conductor

A macabre situation: The press has announced the death of one of the most famous contemporary composers; another renowned composer writes a dirge—in honor of the deceased master—and then it turned out to be nothing but a newspaper hoax: The master is still alive!
Phoenix176  HAYDN Scena di Berenice, Miseri noi misera patria, Violin Concerto No 4, Symphony No 92 in G major ‘Oxford’
Marilyn Schmiege, soprano • Ingrid Seifert, violin • Cappella Coloniensis • Hans-Martin Linde, Ferdinand Leitner, conductors

By recording Haydn’s ‘Oxford’ Symphony beside lesser-known works, the Cappella Coloniensis’s mission to perform in a historically-informed manner and to uncover neglected treasures of music was fulfilled.  
Phoenix177  CARL & JOHANN STAMITZ Clarinet Concertos, Orchestral Quartet
Hans Deinzer, Jann Engel, clarinet • Cappella Coloniensis • Gabriele Ferro, Ulf Björlin, conductors

In 1745, Bohemian-born Johann Stamitz (1717–1757) became director of the Mannheim court orchestra, which he helped transform into Europe‘s most famous orchestra. His works include the first real clarinet concerto, performed on this CD in an exemplary fashion by Cappella Coloniensis with soloist Hans Deinzer.
Phoenix178  HASSE Cleofide (highlights)
Emma Kirkby, Agnès Mellon, soprano • David Cordier, Derek Lee Ragin, alto • Cappella Coloniensis • William Christie, conductor

In the ’80s, Cappella Coloniensis attracted renowned conductor and Baroque opera specialist William Christie from his famous Paris-based ensemble Les Arts Florissants to Cologne for a studio recording of Johann Adolf Hasse’s opera Cleofide of 1731.
  Phoenix Edition Catalogue

 OUR Recordings

DACAPO 6.220600  Dialogue: East Meets West - Chamber Music for Xiao and Recorder
Yue Chen • Michala Petri

Ten new compositions by five young Chinese and five young Danish composers whose colorful and varied works provide distinctive visions of the musical encounter between China and the West. The xiao (Chinese end-blown flute), dizi (Chinese transverse flute) and sopranino, soprano, alto and tenor recorders are played by two first ladies in their field.
  OUR Recordings Catalogue

March 2009 Samplers


Buy all 10 tracks from for only USD 1.49 / GBP .99 / EUR .99

DOWLAND Lute Music Vol 4
Walsingham
SCARLATTI I dolori di Maria sempre vergine
Sinfonia
TURINA Piano Music Vol 5
Cuentos de Espana Series 1 - Devant la tour du Clavero (Salamanca)
CARULLI Guitar and Piano Music Vol 1
Nocturne in G major
CIMAROSA Keyboard Sonatas Vol 1
Keyboard Sonata in B flat major - II Andante
CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO 24 Caprichos de Goya
No 1 Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Pintor
TELEMANN 12 Fantasies for Solo Violin
Fantasie No 2 in G major
GREY Enemy Slayer - A Navajo Oratorio
Prologue
HAGEN Shining Brow
Interlude - Sullivan Variations
RAVEL Shéhérezade
No 2 La flûte enchantée

Buy all 6 tracks for only USD 1.49 / GBP .99 / EUR .99

RIES Piano Concertos Vol 3
Piano Concerto No 7 - I Grave-Allegro con moto
SCHMIDT Notre Dame
Act I Carnival Music
MARTUCCI Andante
SCHUBERT ‘Death and the Maiden’ Symphony (arr. Stein)
I Allegro
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No 11 ‘The Year 1905’
IV The Tocsin
BAJORAS Violin Concerto
IV Allegro vivace

 


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