It’s certainly quicker than the composer’s own electric recording with Stokowski though roughly on a par with the 1924 late acoustic they made together. Even here however Rubinstein is quite a bit quicker in the finale. The effect is one of intense excitement and engagement, sprinkled with a number of the pianist’s own textual emendations, and given the notorious microphone placement on which he insisted the result is a blockbusting, visceral and very up-front traversal. Rubinstein refuses almost all offers to linger, preferring instead a valiant, almost defiant linearity that’s by no means finger perfect but adds a remarkable gloss to more indulgent performers. That said I don’t think anyone would call Moiseiwitsch sentimental in this regard and yet he in his recordings with Goehr and Cameron was altogether slower—three and a half minutes slower in total with Goehr in 1937 for example —and he didn’t sound sentimental either.

What does emerge strongly in this performance is Rubinstein’s approach to elements of Rachmaninoff’s  writing that others can elide, especially audible—given the nature of the recording—in the slow movement. I found his playing here at its best, though the recording sabotages string counter themes and wind lines rather ruinously; even the horns suffer badly. But the compensations are once again linear and decisive, qualities that reappear in the finale. Moiseiwitsch’s slightly earlier performance of this clocked in at 11:24—and he was no slouch; Rubinstein dispatches his finale in 9:58.

The Rhapsody is better balanced. He also had a better orchestra than the NBC in the form of the Philharmonia and a better accompanist than Golschmann in Walter Susskind. Still it’s again a vivaciously phrased and again very powerful, no prisoners type of performance. The pianist’s chording is dynamic and ringing, the horns sound resplendent. The winds etch their lines with powerful personality. For all the élan things don’t sound breathless as they could in the concerto. The tempo here is on a par with Moiseiwitsch’s. A 1950 C sharp minor Prelude makes a formidable, if perhaps inevitable ‘encore’—Rubinstein’s only commercial recording of a solo piece by the composer.

In conclusion there’s quite a bit under an hour of well annotated and expertly transferred Rubinstein-Rachmaninoff here. Powerful, graphically pictorial and directional; intensely dramatic, sometimes uncomfortably so.

The virtuoso Philadelphia Orchestra, considered one of the top American orchestras, had a luxuriant orchestral style. It was eminently suited to these opulent transcriptions and  Stokowski draws from it powerful and deeply affecting performances. He instils extra grandeur and magnificence to Bach’s monumental Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor and to the Toccata and Fugue in D minor. He adds a new dimension to the selections from The Well-Tempered Clavier, a moving pathos, for example, to the E flat minor Prelude; and an amplified sense of piety in his sensitive treatment of the Three Chorale Preludes. The transcription of the Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, made in 1934, was for a reduced orchestra—economies were necessary after the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. The Partita, then, was probably a deliberate choice by Stokowski because his transcription sensitively combines a muted chamber music-like intimacy with a more colourful splendour in the more extrovert passages.

It should be mentioned that an excellent modern recording of a selection of the Bach-Stokowski transcriptions is available on Naxos 8.557883 with Jose Serebrier conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

The present Naxos album is an essential purchase for all Stokowski fans.

He was at least as good an actor as he was a singer. His is a constantly illuminating impersonation of the bargemaster. This is evident from the initial everyday realism to the heart-rending scene with his wife who rejects him, followed by his monologue Nulla! Silenzio! and the final killing of Luigi. This is masterly acting—and singing. The French soprano Margaret Mas, whose only major recording this was, at the time just turned thirty, lacks the creamy tones of Tebaldi but her voice has character and a thrill of its own. Giacinto Prandelli was a more regular guest at the recording studios singing, among other things, Rodolfo opposite Tebaldi’s first Mimi. The owner of a well-schooled, rather bright but not too big voice, he sings a sensitive Luigi. Only in the ultimate love scene (tr. 8) is he strained. …Providing one can accept the mono sound this is as good a version of Il tabarro as one is ever likely to come across. As a bonus there is more than twenty minutes’ worth of arias with Tito Gobbi, recorded during the 78 era when he was at his freshest. …Are you in need of a recording of Il tabarro and feel you don’t want to spend a fortune on it? Here is the answer. Instead of buying a full price version you can have this one, which almost certainly is musically superior, and still have money left for two bottles of decent red wine.

The Schumann Romanza for instance evokes deft colour and wit whilst the two Franck pieces make a good contrastive pair. The second, a Moderato, is the more interesting and to it the master guitarist brings a certain gravity. It’s when we reach the Grieg though that we can feel Segovia at his finest. The third of the Op.47 Lyric Pieces is marvellously sustained and etched with such evocative coloration that it seems bewitching.  The delicate cantabile at reduced dynamics of the Scriabin attests to other virtues as well—sensitive shaping of melodic lines.

But I suppose it’s the second half of the disc’s programme that moves us to altogether more authentically Segovian ground. The de Falla Debussy tribute is a study in mood and feeling. Then there is the biggest work here, the Fantasia-Sonata by the violinist Juan Manén. At not far short of twenty minutes this is quite a major statement. It has a slow introduction which in the slightly cavernous recording sounds ominous. There are contrastive sections, plenty of Flamenco strumming and lissom Iberian panache as well as some languid sun-drenched ones as well. It’s a good piece, dedicated ‘Por y para Andrés Segovia’ —lest anyone thinks this is any kind of transcription from a violin original—but it doesn’t quite sustain its length, enjoyable though it is.

There is a sequence of Villa-Lobos’s superb Etudes, recorded for Decca between 1952 and 1956. Despite the fact that this would seem superficially to be canonic Segovia repertoire the fact is that he came quite late to these etudes. No.3 in A  minor is tailor made for a Bachian such as Segovia, whilst No.1 in E minor—the last of this sequence of five to be recorded—is an intensely concentrated affair. Torroba is represented of course. His Sonatina is strongly rhythmic and clean-limbed whilst the three character pieces by the same composer that end the disc are evidence of Torroba’s gift for characterisation. I’d especially recommend Nocturno.

Graham Wade contributes his usual expert commentary and the transfers do justice to the characteristically accomplished performances.

For one small example of Serafin’s superb direction, listen to the conclusion of the Alvaro/Carlo scene in Act 3—marked Allegro agitato e presto. Here he achieves an electric intensity where the first violins accompany with piano triplets which really bristle. Serafin is never frenetic, yet he creates maximum drama. A further example encapsulating all his finest qualities would be the very final scene of the opera. It must be emphasised that his near-ideal conducting contributes enormously to the desirability of this set.

I can’t pretend to be a great fan of Richard Tucker. He is reliable and technically impressive, but often there is an unlovely, slightly dry, toneless quality to his singing—no ringing, no bloom. In Act 3 especially, his overwrought emotionalism, with sobs and gasps in almost every phrase, I find unattractive and unconvincing. Tagliabue (as Carlo) was fifteen years older, yet I actually prefer his rather more lyrically sustained delivery. Nicola Rossi-Lemeni as Padre Guardiano is a little woolly-toned but nevertheless lyrical. Elena Nicolai’s Preziosilla is frightfully squally. Among the smaller roles, Renato Capecchi’s Melitone undoubtedly gave me most pleasure.

Callas invests everything she sings with genuine human involvement, exposing even more Tucker’s hammier outpourings. In the presence of such great interpretative genius most other singers seem distinctly lesser mortals. Yet her astounding virtues seem lost on those opera buffs who are content with generalised fine singing. What is any kind of singing worth—whether opera or lieder—if the text is not invested with genuine feeling and meaning? In this respect Callas set new standards which, sadly, very few singers have even approached. Leonora is one of Verdi’s more complex heroines, her development encompassing indecision, desperation, terror and grandeur. Only Callas traces this development with artistry, drama and supreme musicianship. Odd notes are raw, unfocused or unattractive, but this is such a small price to pay.

The last fifteen tracks on disc 3 are devoted to nearly an hour of highlights from the same opera, originally issued the year after the Callas set appeared. This is no mere filler, but a valuable addition, with the celebrated Zinka Milanov as Leonora. Milanov has an admirable voice, full, rounded, secure and satisfying, without the deep musicianship and subtlety of Callas.

Michael Scott’s notes include a synopsis (no text), interesting background to the recording (including Walter Legge’s unflattering and unenlightened comments about Callas), and biographies of the principal singers and Serafin. Recorded sound is also fine. However, all this seems irrelevant when one can acquire a great Callas performance in a wonderful Verdi opera for under £20.

Then, some months ago there appeared an early 1970s production, dug out from German radio archives and issued by Hänssler. Hardly had I posted the review when a preview on the Naxos website announced a forthcoming release of this rather famous old Columbia recording. I mentioned it in my review of the Hänssler set, but I didn’t have a copy available then, not even an old LP pressing, so I couldn’t make any comparisons. Now that it is back in circulation, restored by Mark Obert-Thorn, I have to confess that the Hänssler, for all its merits, comes out second best.

On sonic grounds Hänssler scores. Not that the recording is particularly spectacular but German radio recordings of the 1970s maintained high standards. Even though I have heard recordings of the period with fuller sound and more pinpoint clarity it is still more than just acceptable. The Columbia set, unfortunately recorded in mono since there was no stereo equipment available in mid-May 1956, isn’t actually bad. The bass is full and resonant and dynamics are quite impressive but the strings are rather thin and lack the warmth of the Hänssler. There is no lack of clarity, however, and we are able to enjoy the skilful orchestration. Good though Ferdinand Leitner is on the Hänssler, Erich Leinsdorf is that much more alert, more forward-moving and more rhythmically acute. He also has the Philharmonia in superb mid-fifties form and the Philharmonia Chorus was also a force to reckon with even in those days.

I need not go into the plot, since I gave an outline of it in the previous review. The story is taken from the Arabian Nights but there is little attempt at orientalism in the music, apart from the atmospheric entr’acte opening act two, thematically built on the muezzin’s proclamation of prayer.

A look at the cast-list above shows that the producer Walter Legge spared no pains when he gathered this ensemble in the studio, even for the minor roles. The young Eberhard Wächter is the 1st Muezzin in company with two internationally acclaimed tenors and Hermann Prey, born the same year as Wächter (1929), is a characteristically expressive Caliph. As the Cadi we hear the legendary character-tenor Gerhard Unger, who never had a very attractive voice but creates a vivid personality from his role. Grace Hoffman, another relative youngster and later to become a mainstay at Bayreuth, out-sings the still very good Marga Schiml on the Hänssler set. Her duet with Nureddin in the first act is a truly high-spirited tour-de-force. Nureddin was obviously a role that inspired Nicolai Gedda. There is not a bland portrait in his vast gallery of operatic roles on records but here he is in his element: as smooth in the lyrical moments as Laubenthal on the Hänssler but a much more visible character. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf is delicate and alluring as Margiana and her creamy tone is a delight. Helen Donath on the Hänssler set was uncharacteristically acidulous and tremulous.

The real winner I have left for the final paragraph. Linz-born Oskar Czerwenka had an important career in Europe for almost forty years and also sang at the Met, but his recorded legacy is, to my knowledge, fairly thin. He sang standard German bass roles as well as appearing in a couple of world premieres, but his true forte was the buffo roles: Ochs, Kecal, Osmin and van Bett (in Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann). Abul Hassan belongs in that category and his reading here gives a hint of what he would have sounded like in these aforementioned roles. His voice is lighter, less monumental and less sonorous than Hans Sotin’s on the Hänssler set, but he sings all the deep notes with assurance, which Sotin doesn’t. Where they most obviously differ is in the singing style. Czerwenka sometimes shuns legato and resorts to speech-song. He sometimes slides between notes, for comical reasons, which has the effect, on this listener at least, of being slightly off pitch. His technical accomplishment is never in doubt and his patter singing is immaculate. Everything considered he is the more theatrical and sings with much more face, where Sotin is rather straight. The long scenes with Gedda’s Nureddin in the first act are possibly the highlights of the whole recording (CD 1 tr. 7-13).

As a bonus we get the overture in D major that Cornelius wrote in 1873 on Liszt’s advice. It is a charming enough piece in the traditional potpourri format. It is good to have it, even though most listeners would no doubt prefer the more artful original overture in ¾ time. Cornelius never orchestrated that new overture, which Liszt did after Cornelius’s death.

The rest of this 2 CD set is occupied by the little one act opera Abu Hassan, written in 1811 by the then 24-year-old Carl Maria von Weber. The librettist Franz Karl Hiemer drew on the  Arabian Nights, as did Cornelius for his work, so the two have a common denominator. It is an inspired piece with a lot of attractive music and there are few such scintillating overtures in the whole opera literature as this one. It is skilfully orchestrated and needs a fine modern recording to make its mark, which it doesn’t get here. Recorded by German radio on a Magnetophon tape recorder during the war the sound is rather primitive with overload and distortion. Anyone who knows this overture will feel frustration when hearing it. The vocal numbers also suffer from the sound quality, not least the chorus, but it is still interesting and valuable to have this recording as a document of the young Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Both she and the today largely forgotten tenor Erich Witte are lyrical and youthful. Schwarzkopf is already a fully fledged artist who phrases sensitively. The third character, Omar, is again a part for an experienced buffo bass and with veteran Michael Bohnen, born in 1887, the role is in safe hands. He sounds his age, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and he is a good actor and sings impressive low notes. The whole performance is vivid but the sound is a liability. Moreover this is a truncated version of the opera. All the music is there but since this is a Singspiel there is also substantial spoken dialogue and this is missing.

As a filler to the wholly admirable Barbier von Bagdad it is worth having but readers who want the whole thing are advised to search out a 35-year-old recording on EMI, made in Munich under Wolfgang Sawallisch and with Edda Moser, Nicolai Gedda and the magnificent Kurt Moll. Gedda isn’t as youthful as he was almost twenty years earlier but it is still a wonderful reading and the dialogue adds considerably to the experience.

Those who have already bought the Hänssler set of Der Barbier von Bagdad need not feel short-changed – it is a valid reading of a highly accomplished work – but there is an extra frisson to the Leinsdorf set and it now has to be my prime recommendation.

Joseph Haydn died in 1809, and to honour this 200 year occasion, Naxos has assembled a monumental anthology of virtually every significant instrumental work that this great pillar of classical music had ever composed. Just released are the 62 piano sonatas on 10 CDs (8.501042), 76 string quartets (plus The Seven Last Words on the Cross) on 25 CDs (8.502400), and the symphonies, including the Sinfonia Concertante, some attributed symphonies, and addenda to the Hoboken Catalogue, also on 25 CDs (8.503400). The Concertos occupy a "mere" 6 CDs (8.506019); Haydn was not a virtuoso pianist-composer like Mozart or Beethoven, who wrote their sonatas and concertos for their own performance. He composed most of his concerted works for musicians he knew or employed in his capacity as music director of various court orchestras.

Classical music lovers are not a majority of CD buyers—far from it. Yet there are enough people with 'old-fashioned' tastes like us to sustain what was once the mainstay of the music industry.  Also in the minority are serious music  students, the up-and-coming next generation of performing artists. But here  again, if not exactly a tidal wave of musically-inclined young people, there are enough of them to ensure that good music practices  continue—as can be seen in the exciting new young faces that grace the world's concert stages.

At a time when discretionary spending is closely scrutinised, great bargains are sought more than ever. Your humble servant has been collecting classical music recordings far longer than most readers of these lines have been around. Without the slightest hesitation, I can state that never in the history of recorded music has there been an offering of such value and artistic and technical excellence as is this Haydn bicentennial celebration series.  Other labels have had their Bach, Mozart and Beethoven commemorative series, but at premium prices and not nearly as elegantly nor coveniently packaged as are these treasures from Naxos, which is now the uncontested world leader in affordable classical music recordings. The entire collection of the Piano Sonatas retails at US$50; the 25-CD set of the String Quartets goes for US$100, the Symphonies are on 34 CDs retailing at US$150, and so on. The recordings are all digital, and Naxos has not skimped on lengths: the average CD contains well over an hour of music. That works out to pennies per masterpiece!

Let's have a look at the recordings, beginning with the sonatas. These are all performed by Jeno Jando, a familiar name on Naxos, for he is a true musical chameleon, at home in all periods (I cherish his idiomatic readings of all the Mozart piano concertos). The Quartets, likewise, are performed by the excellent Kodaly Quartet. The Symphonies are culled from the huge Naxos catalogue and are performed by various excellent orchestras, prominent among them the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, led by Helmut Mueller-Bruehl, for whose work I have a decades-long admiration. Likewise the concertos.

In time for the holiday gift-giving season, I for one cannot think of better ones—gifts that will last forever and keep on giving a lifetime of great music.

Joseph Haydn died in 1809, and to honour this 200 year occasion, Naxos has assembled a monumental anthology of virtually every significant instrumental work that this great pillar of classical music had ever composed. Just released are the 62 piano sonatas on 10 CDs (8.501042), 76 string quartets (plus The Seven Last Words on the Cross) on 25 CDs (8.502400), and the symphonies, including the Sinfonia Concertante, some attributed symphonies, and addenda to the Hoboken Catalogue, also on 25 CDs (8.503400). The Concertos occupy a "mere" 6 CDs (8.506019); Haydn was not a virtuoso pianist-composer like Mozart or Beethoven, who wrote their sonatas and concertos for their own performance. He composed most of his concerted works for musicians he knew or employed in his capacity as music director of various court orchestras.

Classical music lovers are not a majority of CD buyers—far from it. Yet there are enough people with 'old-fashioned' tastes like us to sustain what was once the mainstay of the music industry.  Also in the minority are serious music  students, the up-and-coming next generation of performing artists. But here  again, if not exactly a tidal wave of musically-inclined young people, there are enough of them to ensure that good music practices  continue—as can be seen in the exciting new young faces that grace the world's concert stages.

At a time when discretionary spending is closely scrutinised, great bargains are sought more than ever. Your humble servant has been collecting classical music recordings far longer than most readers of these lines have been around. Without the slightest hesitation, I can state that never in the history of recorded music has there been an offering of such value and artistic and technical excellence as is this Haydn bicentennial celebration series.  Other labels have had their Bach, Mozart and Beethoven commemorative series, but at premium prices and not nearly as elegantly nor coveniently packaged as are these treasures from Naxos, which is now the uncontested world leader in affordable classical music recordings. The entire collection of the Piano Sonatas retails at US$50; the 25-CD set of the String Quartets goes for US$100, the Symphonies are on 34 CDs retailing at US$150, and so on. The recordings are all digital, and Naxos has not skimped on lengths: the average CD contains well over an hour of music. That works out to pennies per masterpiece!

Let's have a look at the recordings, beginning with the sonatas. These are all performed by Jeno Jando, a familiar name on Naxos, for he is a true musical chameleon, at home in all periods (I cherish his idiomatic readings of all the Mozart piano concertos). The Quartets, likewise, are performed by the excellent Kodaly Quartet. The Symphonies are culled from the huge Naxos catalogue and are performed by various excellent orchestras, prominent among them the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, led by Helmut Mueller-Bruehl, for whose work I have a decades-long admiration. Likewise the concertos.

In time for the holiday gift-giving season, I for one cannot think of better ones—gifts that will last forever and keep on giving a lifetime of great music.

Joseph Haydn died in 1809, and to honour this 200 year occasion, Naxos has assembled a monumental anthology of virtually every significant instrumental work that this great pillar of classical music had ever composed. Just released are the 62 piano sonatas on 10 CDs (8.501042), 76 string quartets (plus The Seven Last Words on the Cross) on 25 CDs (8.502400), and the symphonies, including the Sinfonia Concertante, some attributed symphonies, and addenda to the Hoboken Catalogue, also on 25 CDs (8.503400). The Concertos occupy a "mere" 6 CDs (8.506019); Haydn was not a virtuoso pianist-composer like Mozart or Beethoven, who wrote their sonatas and concertos for their own performance. He composed most of his concerted works for musicians he knew or employed in his capacity as music director of various court orchestras.

Classical music lovers are not a majority of CD buyers—far from it. Yet there are enough people with 'old-fashioned' tastes like us to sustain what was once the mainstay of the music industry.  Also in the minority are serious music  students, the up-and-coming next generation of performing artists. But here  again, if not exactly a tidal wave of musically-inclined young people, there are enough of them to ensure that good music practices  continue—as can be seen in the exciting new young faces that grace the world's concert stages.

At a time when discretionary spending is closely scrutinised, great bargains are sought more than ever. Your humble servant has been collecting classical music recordings far longer than most readers of these lines have been around. Without the slightest hesitation, I can state that never in the history of recorded music has there been an offering of such value and artistic and technical excellence as is this Haydn bicentennial celebration series.  Other labels have had their Bach, Mozart and Beethoven commemorative series, but at premium prices and not nearly as elegantly nor coveniently packaged as are these treasures from Naxos, which is now the uncontested world leader in affordable classical music recordings. The entire collection of the Piano Sonatas retails at US$50; the 25-CD set of the String Quartets goes for US$100, the Symphonies are on 34 CDs retailing at US$150, and so on. The recordings are all digital, and Naxos has not skimped on lengths: the average CD contains well over an hour of music. That works out to pennies per masterpiece!

Let's have a look at the recordings, beginning with the sonatas. These are all performed by Jeno Jando, a familiar name on Naxos, for he is a true musical chameleon, at home in all periods (I cherish his idiomatic readings of all the Mozart piano concertos). The Quartets, likewise, are performed by the excellent Kodaly Quartet. The Symphonies are culled from the huge Naxos catalogue and are performed by various excellent orchestras, prominent among them the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, led by Helmut Mueller-Bruehl, for whose work I have a decades-long admiration. Likewise the concertos.

In time for the holiday gift-giving season, I for one cannot think of better ones—gifts that will last forever and keep on giving a lifetime of great music.

For the super-budget price of 2 CDs you get these with symphony tracks from Naxos recordings and a 158 page book in a slipcase taking up no more shelf space than 2 standard CDs. I think you’re expected to read the book, pause where the CD tracks are cued in the text and listen to them as a reward. I prefer to go straight to the music performances and then use the book to find out more about what I like. Luckily, even without index, access in this book is easy.

You discover the symphony chronologically. First Sammartini’s Symphony in D, succinct, highly varied and entertaining, a good example of the early type. The opening movement struts amiably. The slow movement is both elegant and eloquent as it’s expressive within the discipline of form. The repeated melody for violins is varied by solo violin presentation with tasteful additional ornamentation in this stylish performance by the Aradia Ensemble/Kevin Mallon though in the opening movement the small scale ensemble is rather aggrandized by the glowing recording acoustic. A snappy, fast throwaway finale completes this carefully crafted piece.

Stamitz’s Symphony in E flat is more modern in attitude. This piece seems to be worked out before your ears and Stamitz wants to engage you in this experience. So the music develops from shorter melodic cells more gradually and there’s excitement as well as charm, for example with the Mannheim crescendo in the opening movement (tr. 4 0:14) and drama in the slow movement, now disciplined, now more melting. The Northern Chamber Orchestra/Nicholas Ward fully honour the demands of this music, though perhaps their approach is a little over solemn in density of tone. In Haydn’s Symphony 22, The Philosopher, Ward gives us a jovial Minuet of fair bounce if a smidgen heavy in tone and a sunny Trio which favours the horns overmuch at the expense of the cors anglais. In the finale it’s the shimmeringly sprightly strings which those instruments have to and do match in echo. Haydn blends Sammartini’s elegance and Stamitz’s intellectual rigour.

The rest of CD1 is standard symphonic repertoire. Capella Istropolitana/Barry Wordsworth bring the finale of Mozart’s Haffner Symphony played with litheness and panache. But their closer miked recording of the slow movement of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony is heavier in tone which for me gives it too much romantic warmth and blunts dynamic contrast. Yet the gauzy effect of the muted violins and the angst in the firmly articulated accents, for instance in the second theme (tr. 9 1:25) come across.

Three opening movements close CD1. In Haydn’s London Symphony Wordsworth and Capella Istropolitana display a grandly rhetorical introduction with breadth and power but also soft melting elements, especially in the first violins before a relaxed Allegro that soon becomes vivacious. Wordsworth’s fine momentum gives it joie de vivre while he’s still scrupulous about vertical clarity. In Beethoven’s Symphony 7 introduction the Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia/Bela Drahos display imposing, if rather ponderously massive, tutti chords offset by beguiling woodwind solos and there’s a sense of heroic effort in the rising scales spread across all the strings. The Vivace’s first theme on flute (tr. 11 3:42) is cheery, the crucial horns shine bright and clear in the following tutti and the second theme (4:49) has a courageous glint. The strength of the performance comes from its clear dynamic contrasts.

The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra/Michael Halasz give Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony a measured, solemn opening but agitated subsidiary theme on oboe and clarinet (tr. 12 0:24) with rustling strings beneath. The famous second theme is warmly presented on cellos (1:19) but also has a restless accompaniment and soon fragments into stormy outbursts. Halasz’s approach is deliberate, arguably overmuch so, but Schubert’s construction is so taut the effect is more powerful than stilted. In this CD’s context you hear Stamitz’s legacy used to more searingly dramatic effect.

CD2 has a growingly nationalist feel. First up is the most overtly programmatic symphony, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Its second movement Ball should sweep you off your feet but the San Diego Symphony Orchestra/Yoav Talmi, while clear in texture, offer for me a too delicate waltz with a touch self-conscious momentary slowing of tempo (tr. 1 0:50). The fourth movement, March to the Scaffold, is somewhat deliberate too but Talmi does convey its hovering between the grand formality of ritual and the garish grotesqueness of nightmare.

The question with the slow movement of Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 (tr. 3) is how slow and melancholy is it. Brahms marking is ‘Slow but not too much’ and I feel in the London Philharmonic Orchestra/Marin Alsop account here the second element of the marking is underplayed. So while the cellos’ opening theme has a spaciously sombre dignity there’s also a rather withdrawn inwardness which develops into a tiptoeing hesitancy. The sunnier second phase (2:59) has a more winsome delicacy and fragility while the third phase (4:03) is warm and homely, then turbulent before the gentle insistence, beautifully realized, of the sober wistfulness of the calm mix of first and third phase material.

The first movement of Borodin’s Symphony No. 2 is ever dramatic though without a programme, its rugged power in brass and lower strings vividly revealed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Stephen Gunzenhauser. The brief opening fanfare like motif is much repeated and varied. The second theme (tr. 4 1:40) begins more relaxed and folksy but at 4:02 in the wind, is presented urgently like the first motif. But that is more smoothly presented at 3:16 and 5:44, so you begin to feel it as the same character in different moods. In the latter case the first theme in the upper woodwind is flowingly though also animatedly layered over a second theme now uneasy in the lower strings. Technically clever but musically stimulating.

We get just part of a symphony movement, bars 178 to 246, or 6:51 of 25:48, of the opening movement of Mahler Symphony No. 10, itself only left in draft at Mahler’s death. But it’s well chosen at the return of the opening Adagio material in richly writhing texture of first and second violins with low brass backing followed by the contrast of the more isolated, probing string line of material which actually starts the work. At this point comes the movement’s crisis, a massive panoply of full orchestra, crashing chords and shrieking trumpet, a layering of raw sound rather than melody but that returns in a violins’ procession, consolation even in straitened circumstances which attains calm. Huth’s commentary characterizes this as the end of romanticism but it’s equally the beginning of 20th century stark juxtapositions. With the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit life’s beauties and horrors are lived to the full, intently displayed with unflinching gaze.

Whereas Mahler lives spontaneously in the moment, with Sibelius themes germinate and sweep irresistibly forward, even though unconventionally in his Third Symphony (tr. 6) where in place of a recapitulation a new theme sneaks in on the violas at 4:03 at the end of the development and flowers when the cellos join them at 4:22. The remainder of this finale is of mounting fulfilment and conviction, resolutely delivered in dark burnished colours by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Petri Sakari.

The rondo from Elgar Symphony No. 2 (tr. 7) is both jocular and disturbed from the outset and its second theme (0:49) at once bouncy and morbid. The pastoral woodwind headed centre (2:45) offers a carefree interlude with the violins dreamy response but the drumbeats, as of a man in high fever Elgar once suggested, begin in earnest from 4:44. The BBC Philharmonic/Edward Downes present this all with a sure sense of idiom so the mastery of  Elgar’s orchestration is fully revealed.

The scherzo from Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 with its abrasive strings, screeching woodwind and mighty brass is technically impressive from the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Ladislav Slovak. It has great clarity of texture and agitation, with the lacerating chords in the central section memorable, but in comparison with the Philadelphia Orchestra/Mariss Jansons (EMI 3653002) it lacks manic edge, at once a fascination with and fear of instability. Their maelstrom is more brutal.

There could be no greater contrast than the calm, free flowing, quiet and patient unfolding of the opening of Copland’s Symphony No. 3 (tr. 9). It has benign, intrinsic warmth, opening out to a positive affirmation, not about melody so much as units of growth and the conveying of mood. Woodwind solos in particular are heard as individual contributions to a unified whole community of witness which culminates in an exultant climax, followed by a return to the opening theme presented with expansive sureness. Here indeed are wide open spaces. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra/James Judd give a finely detailed account of this heartening music.

The spell is broken by the finale of Lutoslawski’s Symphony No. 1 in a wonderfully bracing performance from the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit. This is a Haydn finale in 20th century dress, toying with melody which never quite arrives, glorying in its clownish raucousness yet with an almost continually contrasting lightness. I sought out the rest of the work: it’s fascinatingly variegated.

And then it’s back to Haydn, the close of his Farewell Symphony (tr. 11). To point out to Prince Esterhazy that his musicians were overdue a holiday the Presto finale breaks off into an Adagio in which the orchestra is gradually depleted to 2 violins. The Presto seems more tetchy edited 2:15 in, already with a head of steam, making a greater contrast with the Adagio (0:49) looking forward to happier days in an alert, pleasingly rounded glowing performance by Capella Istropolitana/Barry Wordsworth.

Andrew Huth’s very accessible 95 page essay provides an excellent digest of the development of the symphony, charting what makes its key composers distinctive and why others are less so. A template emerges of the musical characteristics of an effective symphony irrespective of period but there’s also attention to the cultural, social and political conditions which affect its success and thereby influence. The strengths and weaknesses of the 20th century English symphony are tersely revealed, though I feel Bliss’s A Colour Symphony is worth a mention. Huth also accounts for embarrassment at not including any female composers. Well, British Alice Mary Smith’s Victorian symphonies (Chandos CHAN 10283) are little known yet their Mendelssohnian grasp of the dramatic impulse within a strong formal framework is attractive. As the most prolific female symphonist ever, the present day American Gloria Coates might surely have been mentioned (eg. Naxos 8.559289).

In the CD examples more discipline, having just one movement per composer apart from the short complete Sammartini symphony, would have allowed space for at least 3 more composers. I’d opt for Schumann, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky. A 41 page timeline from 1730 to 2007 parallels the development of the symphony with history, science and technology, art and architecture and literature. This is thought provoking but for later than the discovery stage. I’d like to have seen assistance to the explorer where to go next, for instance if you like the Lutoslawski. There are no suggestions for further listening nor reading. A section charting the growth of the orchestra could have been better matched with examples of works actually featured on the CDs. But there is a helpful 6 page glossary. This, then, is a recommendable overview but a little fine tuning would have further enhanced its educational value.

Consisting of a 72-page booklet and two very generous CDs of music, author John Riley provides a necessarily sketchy introduction to film music, old and new (a much, much bigger book would have been needed to cover the same ground in detail), and not just with the emphasis on Hollywood films, providing brief profiles of many of the great names in film music composition the world over, together with introductions to some of their work, mainly as a guide to the selections included on the CDs. This for course means that there are some notable absentees, but many of the landmark compositions are covered, and excerpts from them included.

It's a nice, undemanding read that can be enjoyed by all, and includes archival quotes from composers Ennio Morricone, Maurice Jaubert, George Antheil, Henry Mancini, Miklos Rozsa, William Alwyn, and Sir Arthur Bliss; concluding with the bonus feature "A Century of Film Music: A Timeline," which not only charts the notable film music events, but also historical events, and literary, art and architectural achievements.

The two CDs, both featuring more than 78 minutes of music, reveal just how many fine recordings of screen music have graced the Naxos family labels over the years; all of it re-recorded of course, and the majority of it beautifully played. Disc One mainly concentrates on Hollywood, past and present; with Disc Two focusing on British, European and Japanese film music.

Ideal as a stocking filler, this release provides hours of absorbing reading and listening and, as I said at the start of this review, serves as an excellent introduction to anyone with a blossoming interest in the art of screen music writing.

First, it shows a greater degree of substance than most of the McKay works that have been recorded up to now. Second, it demonstrates the fears that were evident in America after it had just come out of the Great Depression but slowly became aware of the growth of fascism elsewhere in the world at the same time. Third, it demonstrates that at this time Americans were realizing that the industrial aspects of the recovery were producing a country that was strange to many of its citizens. Finally, it harks back to a period when artistic works that crossed “traditional” boundaries were popular - this work is sometimes described as a ‘ballet’ and sometimes as a ‘symphony’. 

Though this work is meant to be danced from start to finish, the musical section is self-contained, being held together motivically. It is in the four movements of a symphony, each evoking the work of a famous American poet (Poe, Sidney Lanier, Whitman and Carl Sandberg). It does this more in atmosphere than in any autobiographical sense or through the setting of particular poems. The chorus is wordless, but is used very effectively. The evocations of the four poets more or less generate a history of America from roughly 1835 to 1935, the year of composition. 

Although each movement has an elaborate dance scenario, we hear only the music here, which hangs together perfectly well. Poe and his descent (Symbolic Portrait) into madness is an interesting place to start a symphony and the movement becomes progressively more jagged and eventually hysterical. In the ballet scenario various ghostly figures appear which would only add to the gloomy feeling. McKay’s writing in the last part of this movement is some of his best ever. Totally different is Sidney Lanier, a poet not much read today and even going out of style in 1935. He is the inspiration for a Pastoral that is more in the typical McKay manner. It is descriptive of nature’s wonders in North America and makes very effective use of the women’s chorus. The middle sections describing the great rivers and the coda with chorus are especially serene. 

After classic American literature and the native landscape comes the inevitable movement west in the Whitman section (Westward!). This starts with the growth of American cities and then the inhabitants steadily moving west. I found the music here not as original as that of the first two movements, although the variant of the opening theme from the first movement that is used to describe Whitman is quite good and the music improves slightly as the prairies are conquered. At the end of the movement the triumphal tone begins to show a slight edge, which will lead us into the fourth movement. 

The last movement, Machine Age Blues, is the crux of the symphony and was encored at the premiere. Here, Machine, not Man, is the master and the skyscrapers are scarier than anything in the famous work of Carpenter. Multiple troubles assail America: the machinery; jazzy music symbolizing decadence and a very different City from Whitman’s time. They combine musically to portray a swift slide towards destruction. These musical elements later combine with satirical blues and cheap dances leading to a frenzied combination of all these musical components. On the stage Poe’s ghost reappears and those dancing to the cheap music do so to their end. Musically this is quite effective and I’m sure the visual element would add quite a bit more. This is not the “classic” American 1930s symphony of vision and optimism and I’m sure Roy Harris or Walter Piston wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

We are greatly in the debt of all involved in the production of this recording for showing us not only another side of McKay, but also a different musical view of a time in American history from the one that we usually get—one that is perhaps due to the composer and perhaps to the locale in which he was living. John Nardolillo is especially to be commended for maintaining almost constant interest in a piece that goes on for over an hour and at the same time lacks the visual element of its overall conception. Occasional longueurs or drops in tension seem to be less his fault than that of the composer. The orchestra, while not professional, gives their performance a great deal of enthusiasm and as said above, the choral preparation is first rate. The Singletary Center was perhaps not the greatest choice for this recording—it has a rather cavernous sound. This disc is very much for those who continue to be interested in McKay and his magnum opus on disc and to those looking for a different view of American musical history of this time.

Edgar Allan Poe is the focus of the darkly dramatic opening movement; Sidney Lanier is evoked in a Pastoral with a wordless female chorus; for Walt Whitman, somewhat uncharacteristically, we have cowboy ballads in "Westward!"; Carl Sandburg is limned in jazz (in which McKay had early performing experience) in "Machine Age Blues."

This sprawling piece is perhaps longer than it needs to be, and is not burdened by an excess of subtlety -- but it is clearly from the heart, and is a valuable document of its time. McKay conducted the premiere, in 1935, at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he taught. Naxos’s revival makes good use of the very capable and committed forces of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, under a conductor who understands the score’s strengths and limitations. The sound quality is well tailored to the musical content, and the documentation, by the composer’s sons, is authoritative and detailed (though some editing might have been helpful).

In sum: an intriguing bit of American musical history, and if it provokes some curiosity about the more modestly proportioned McKay works on the earlier CDs, so much the better.

Little Wolfgang was writing better symphonies before he was ten. In other words, this is not very good music. All the more reason then to make the best of it, and put some fire under this weak brew. But Maestro Mallon's approach to these works is uncharacteristically timid, and his musicians respond with a marked lack of enthusiasm. The only decent reading is in the second G Major work, the "Neue Lambacher Sinfonie".

Casablancas' career goes back to the mid-'70s when the influence of the Second Viennese School reigned supreme. The abruptness, general avoidance of tonal centers, dense textures, and overall expressionist atmosphere of his piano music all point to the influence of the early music of Schoenberg and his compatriots, but Casablancas mixes various Iberian influences, although not specifically nationalist ones, into a distinctive synthesis. Primary among these is the proto-minimalist language of Casablancas' Catalonian contemporary Mompou; many of the sections of these works are very short, several of them under a minute in length. There are also attractive traces of Spanish Impressionism, and, increasingly often in the composer's later career, a virtuoso, often lyrical pianism. The "Triptic Infantil" (Childhood Triptych) of 2003 is more about children than for them, but this or many other pieces on the album would furnish ideal material for student recitals; the sharp contrasts between impressionistic reflection and rigorous, muscular fast sections appeal to audiences despite the general density of the material. Sample some of the shorter works such as the "Three Aphorisms" of 2003; the longer works like perversely named the "Three Bagatelles" are tougher going. That work's name has a mysterious dot in the middle of its Catalan title, unexplained by the otherwise helpful booklet notes. A pair of pianists is featured, and that works nicely; each tends to highlight different aspects of Casablancas' music. Worth the time and money, especially for pianists and their friends.

Whilst a student Blake formed a violin and piano duo with the late Miles Baster—it was after a recital they gave in Edinburgh, which ended with the Franck Sonata, that Baster was asked to form the Edinburgh Quartet (for whom Blake has recently completed a String Quartet for their 50th anniversary)—and they worked their way through the whole of the repertoire for their instruments. The Violin Sonata was written at the behest of Baster but as he left for Scotland and the new Quartet the work was abandoned with only a few sketches made. A decade later Jack Rothstein asked for a Sonata and the first version of the present work was written. But what we have here is a "ferociously" (Blake’s word) revised version, dedicated to the memory of Baster. Starting in a most unprepossessing way the music soon moves into typical Blakeian rhythmic and melodic mode, and the movement progresses in a dance–like manner, with short lyrical episodes breaking up the forward movement. Although this music doesn’t sound at all like Douglas Lilburn’s magnificent Violin Sonata (1950) it reminded me of that work because of its sheer determination of purpose. The slow movement which follows is distant and withdrawn, the music moving simply in a melodic line for the violin accompanied by a single line in the right hand of the piano and held chords in the left. An agitated and passionate middle section, with wide leaps for the fiddle, disturbs the calm but the opening section returns, a little more resigned and melancholic. The finale is a laconic and gently humorous piece, after a whirlwind start, which jumps from idea to idea without resting. This Violin Sonata is a very fine achievement and a worthy addition to the repertoire.

Penillion was originally written for violin and harp and exists in several different versions—one for flute and harp is available on a disk of Blake’s chamber music, Meridian CDE84553. It’s in eight very short sections mixing lively and restrained music. As befits a penillion—a Welsh composition where an harpist accompanies him/herself whilst singing—these are songs without words, but the harmonies are far more modern than anything you’d hear in a real penillion. It’s an unpretentious, delicate piece.

That the Piano Quartet should be included here is of special significance for it was with this work that Blake made the conscious decision to cut back on his more commercial, and lucrative (!) film work and turn to the concert hall. Indeed so much is it a pivotal work in his catalogue that he turned down the opportunity to score Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon in favour of writing this work. The work was written for the performers playing here, who gave the première, in the Purcell Room, eight months after this recording was made. It’s a very classical work in the mould of Dvořák’s chamber works (a comment which shocked Blake when I mentioned it to him, for he had thought it to be rooted slightly earlier). No matter. It’s a fine work, strong themes, a well thought out design, very gratefully written for the instruments—Blake fully understands strings (he says he once played the fiddle badly). The scherzo, second, movement has a Mendelssohnian lightness and freshness about it, but the harmony belies anything pre–1940! The slow movement may come as a shock to anyone who knows Blake’s wonderful Piano Concerto for this is the Concerto’s slow movement in embryo. It’s very touching in this form, the emotion more restrained, the gestures smaller but no less moving. The finale is a country dance.

The Jazz Dances make a delightful collection of encore pieces, but they’re not jazz per se, rather jazzy pieces—in the way that the Blues in Ravel’s Violin Sonata is jazzy. It’s hard to believe that these pieces, which fit perfectly on to the combination of violin and piano, were originally written for two pianos! They are by turns fast and slow, one a blues, one a boogie, one a kind of popular song and so on. Like the Five Pieces, op.84 (1964) by his friend Malcolm Arnold any one of these miniatures would make very good encore pieces for they are most enjoyable and great fun.

This is a very enjoyable and exciting disk, not least for the superb Violin Sonata. Madeleine Mitchell is a committed advocate for this music and it is to be hoped that the Sonata, at the very least, will enter her regular repertoire. The composer himself is a sympathetic duo partner, and the sessions brought back, for him, the memories of his partnership with Baster and the joy and satisfaction of playing chamber music together.

Despite the fact that the recording of the Quartet dates from 34 years before the recordings of the other works, the sound is remarkably consistent and has a lovely, rich, ambiance and in the duo works there is a real feel of the concert room. The musicians are placed a little way from the microphone so as to put them in perspective with the acoustic.

Now Naxos has dipped its toe into the Blake catalogue might I make a plea for a disk of his music for string quartet? The public deserves to hear more of this endlessly fascinating and very interesting composer.