Naxos Music Group

NEWS FROM THE NAXOS MUSIC GROUP

April 2021

Label of the Month: Grand Piano

‘A treasure island of piano music.’
Spiegel Online

The Grand Piano label enjoys a reputation for releasing high-quality recordings of rare musical gems. Dedicated to the exploration of undiscovered repertoire for piano, the label’s specialty is complete piano cycles of lesser-known composers, whose works might otherwise have remained unknown and unrecorded. Such composers include Alexander Tcherepnin, Mieczsław Weinberg, Joachim Raff, Leopold Koželuch, Vítězslava Kaprálová and many more. Grand Piano artists are very often authorities on these composers and experts on the chosen repertoire, giving their performances a unique stamp of authority.

Drawing from a deep pool of talents around the globe, Grand Piano can boast that most of its catalogue of over 200 recordings to date are world premieres. Its striking album covers are adorned with figurative paintings by the award-winning artist Gro Thorsen, atmospheric images by international photographers Tony Price and Annabel Lee, and witty and original paintings and illustrations by artist Alastair Taylor.


NEW RELEASES

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS
GP846
‘This is the set to have for piano music by the leader of the Mighty Five.’
American Record Guide
★★★★
GP852-53
‘Grand Piano continue their strong Armenian line with no sign of fatigue.’
MusicWeb International
GP813
‘An intriguing recording.’
Dancing Times
★★★★★
★★★★


www.grandpianorecords.com

Artist of the Month – Nicolas Horvath, piano

Nicolas Horvath
© Marine Pierrot Detry

Nicolas Horvath began his music studies at Monaco’s Académie de Musique et de Théâtre Prince Rainier III and soon began to make an impression on a number of artists who would become his mentors. Aged 16 he caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster before coming to the notice of several distinguished international pianists, including Liszt specialist Leslie Howard. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including First Prize at both the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions. He has become noted for hosting concerts of unusual length, sometimes lasting over twelve hours, such as the overnight performance of the complete piano music of Erik Satie at the Paris Philharmonie before a cumulative audience of 14,000 people. In 2019 he performed alongside Philip Glass at the same venue in a programme devoted to the American composer’s piano music. Horvath’s extensive and varied discography on Grand Piano includes ongoing cycles of the complete piano music by Erik Satie and Philip Glass; rare works by Claude Debussy; Jaan Rääts’ piano sonatas; a new work by the American experimental composer Alvin Lucier; and a newly recorded world premiere recording of piano works by the French, 18-19th Century composer Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy. Nicolas is a Steinway Artist.


NEW RELEASES
NEW
GP872-73

The thirteen sonatas on this première recording represent the complete music for solo piano by the Parisian keyboardist and composer Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy, a musician much celebrated in her day and greatly admired by Boccherini. Introducing technical innovations more usually associated with Czerny and Liszt, these sonatas reflect a gloriously rich musical environment, incorporating and transforming elements from music of the time with great imagination and wit, and showing us that Madame Brillon’s glittering salon, though private, was by no means isolated.

♪♪♪♪♪
NEW
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Alvin Lucier is one of America’s foremost experimentalists, challenging the fundamental principles of music and focusing on acoustic phenomena and how listeners perceive them. Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators explores the acoustic ‘beating’ effects and tuning phenomena of sine waves against piano tones. This new XL version expands the extraordinary listening experience in a work described by Nicolas Horvath as ‘immersive, intense and enigmatic’.

‘It will surely add to Horvath’s reputation as a leading interpreter of the most unusual experimental forms in contemporary music.’ –⁠ ⁠Sequenza21.com


RECOMMENDED RECORDINGS
GP822
‘An altogether fascinating study of what might have been.’
Musical Opinion ★★★★★
GP823
‘The playing is top-notch, the sound and notes are exceptional. We still have more to come, and given the huge amount of work it takes to bring a new scholarly edition to print, I am pleased that this is such a good realization of Orledge’s efforts.’
American Record Guide
GP815
‘Horvath performs each étude with his own style and expertly provides feeling and dynamic phrasing, allowing each one to stand on its own merits as a musical work as well as a piano exercise.’
MusicWeb International
GP692
‘Horvath’s playing, always unhurried, ensures that the desolation of ‘Why does someone have to die’ emerges as the emotional hub. It is fascinating to hear Glass’s take on Viennese Waltz (the 1977 Modern Love Waltz); and to have the world premiere of the composer’s own 2007 transcription of Notes on a Scandal, a fascinating, enigmatic piece. …Horvath brings an unremittingly hard touch to the hypnotic Music in Fifths. Glass enthusiasts need not hesitate.’
International Piano ★★★★★
GP752LP
‘Glass Essentials – An 80th Anniversary Tribute is a fitting tribute to a musical icon. The music is complex, accessible and performed with technical mastery.’
Audiophile Audition ★★★★
GP765
‘A recording that will please both connoisseurs of Estonian music and amateurs seeking new discoveries.’
Crescendo (France)

To view Nicolas Horvath’s discography on Grand Piano, click here.

www.nicolashorvath.com

Opus Arte wins BBC Music Magazine Award 2021 with Die Walküre

OA1308D
Also available in Blu-ray Video

The winners of the 2021 BBC Music Magazine Awards have been announced. Best DVD went to the Opus Arte label and Keith Warner’s staging of Wagner’s Die Walküre from the Royal Opera House, with Antonio Pappano at the helm and a cast featuring Stuart Skelton, emily Magee, Nina Stemma, John Lundgren and Sarah Connolly.

‘Pappano has always had a special relationship with the Ring’s second part…and the Royal Opera House Orchestra rewards him with some of its most sumptuous playing. The cast in this 2018 staging would have been the envy of every world class opera company… But it’s Nina Stemme, as it should be, who defines this production. Generously voiced, she is essentially a lyric Brünnhilde, most moving when she tells Sieglinde that she is bearing Siegmund’s son.’BBC Music Magazine ★★★★★


EXPLORE OTHER AWARD-WINNING AUDIOVISUAL TITLES
OA1289D
‘A supremely talented cast.’
BBC Music Magazine Award 2020
★★★★★
★★★★★
★★★★
★★★★
Also available in Blu-ray Video
BAC154
‘The outstanding central performances in a production, superbly conducted by Ivor Bolton, which brought me close to tears.’
BBC Music Magazine Award 2019 ★★★★★
★★★★★
★★★★
Also available in Blu-ray Video
OA1031D
‘Altogether a riotously funny, ravishingly intelligent production.’
BBC Music Magazine Award 2011 ★★★★★
Also available in Blu-ray Video

See the complete list of winners on BBC Music Magazine’s website

Marin Alsop named Performance Today’s 2021 Classical Woman of the Year

Marin Alsop
© Adriane White

Marin Alsop, one of the Naxos’ major recording artists, has been named Classical Woman of the Year by Performance Today, the popular American classical music radio programme. More than eighty artists were nominated for the award. The magazine quoted one listener’s support for the winner: ‘Marin has energized the entire community with her outreach to the citizens of Baltimore city and beyond.’

Marin has more than 50 albums in the Naxos catalogue and is recognised across the world for her innovative programming and for her deep commitment to education and the development of audiences of all ages. She is currently music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (since 2007), music director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (since 2012) and chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (since 2019). She famously made history in 2013 as the first female conductor of the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms.


NEW RELEASE FEATURING MARIN ALSOP
NEW
8.506038

Sergey Prokofiev’s seven symphonies are acknowledged as one of the major cycles of the 20th century, and these recordings with Marin Alsop and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra have received widespread critical acclaim. From the crisp vitality of the youthful ‘Classical’ Symphony to the viscerally exciting Third, the Fifth Symphony which for Prokofiev represented ‘the grandeur of the human spirit’, and the deeply moving and heartfelt Sixth Symphony, this is an unforgettable collection crowned by the bitter-sweet Seventh Symphony, the composer’s final significant work.

For more recordings by Marin Alsop, please visit naxos.com.

Spectacular performance of Puccini’s La Bohème

Sonya Yoncheva and Charles Castronovo lead an award-winning cast in Richard Jones’s acclaimed production of Puccini’s most heartrending opera. Emmanuel Villaume conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Opera Chorus in some of the composer’s most luscious and memorable music.

Spectacular designs by Stewart Laing for this Royal Opera production set the passion, friendship, comedy and tragedy in a late 19th-century Paris. The production evokes the vulnerability of youth amid the harshness and glamour of the big city, and contrasts the poverty of the bohemians’ attic home with the splendour of Paris’ shopping arcades on Christmas Eve.

OA1332D
Also available on Blu-ray Video

‘Exuberant and persuasive… preformed with élan’.The Guardian

CAST

Rodolfo Charles Castronovo
Mimì Sonya Yoncheva
Marcello Andrzej Filonczyk
Musetta Simona Mihai
Schaunard Gyula Nagy
Colline Peter Kellner
Benoît Jeremy White
Alcindoro Eddie Wade
Parpignol Andrew Macnair

Royal Opera Chorus
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Chorus Master William Spaulding
Conductor Emmanuel Villaume
Director Richard Jones
Set Designer Stewart Laing
Lighting Designer Mimi Jordan Sherin
Movement Director Sarah Fahie
Directed for the Screen by Jonathan Haswell

Recorded at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 29 January 2020


More full-length videos? NaxosVideoLibrary.com brings you an extensive streaming video library of classical music performances, opera, ballet, live concerts and documentaries. Watch the world's greatest opera houses, ballet companies, orchestras and artists perform on demand! NaxosVideoLibrary.com offers over 3,485 full-length videos, accessible anytime, anywhere.

Andreas Ihlebæk at the Norwegian Spellemann Awards

Norwegian pianist Andreas Ihlebæk recently received the nomination for Best Children’s Music at the annual Spellemann Awards (Spellemannprisen), also known as the Norwegian GRAMMYs, for his recording of Northern Lullabies on NXN Recordings. Check out this stunning video his performance at the ceremony.

‘Andreas Ihlebæk performs magic with his Instrument… taking you on a journey into another world.’ – Public Forum MagazinePublic Forum Magazine

Andreas Ihlebæk

Norwegian pianist Andreas Ihlebæk recently rece,d the nomination for Best Children's Music at the annual Spellemann Awards (Spellemannprisen), also known as the Norwegian GRAMMYs, for his recording of Northern Lullabies on NXN Recordings. Check out this stunning video his performance at the ceremony.

‘Andreas Ihlebæk performs magic with his Instrument… taking you on a journey into another world.’ – Public Forum MagazinePublic Forum Magazine

NXN8001
NEW
IHLEBÆK, A.: I Will Build You a House
NXN1004

Andreas Ihlebæk – who was born in Oslo, but grew up in Hamburg and San Francisco – and who made his living as a writer/journalist travelling around the US, Asia, Spain and the Caribbean while composing his debut album The Guest – has seen himself as a global citizen since childhood. His new album I Will Build You A House grew out of the steadily growing concern about the world around him, and where we’re headed. As the pandemic hit, the title suddenly became all the more relevant, with the urgent need for safety as chaos rages outside. However, this music is not about the physical dimension of surrounding ourselves with walls: it is about building a good place for listeners to exist and/or escape to, wherever they may be.

Shostakovich’s melancholic quartet featured in The Queen’s Gambit

Netflix’s popular original series The Queen’s Gambit won two Golden Globe Awards for Best Limited Series or Television Film and Best Actress (Limited Series or Television Film). Schostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 is featured in the nail-biting final episode, showing the final match at the Moscow Invitational.


Need to license some music for a project and don’t know where to start? Visit Naxos Licensing to find out how!

Visit Presto Classical to get up to 30% off on the Capriccio label

Until 17 May, Presto Classical is offering up to 30% off all recordings on the Capriccio label including downloads. The promotion includes some brand new recordings.


HIGHLIGHTED RELEASES
NEW
C8053
NEW
C5382
NEW
C7367

Robert Trevino conducts Ravel with the Basque National Orchestra

NEW
RAVEL, M.: Boléro / La valse / Rapsodie espagnole / Pavane pour une infante défunte
ODE1385-2

Following his successful debut with a complete Beethoven symphony cycle, conductor Robert Trevino’s new album release on Ondine features six orchestral pieces by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), one of the Basque region's most famous composers, played by the Basque National Orchestra. Born in a small town in France very close to the Spanish border, Ravel spent most of his life in Paris. He was extremely proud of his Basque background, however, having already absorbed himself in its culture as a child, and many elements of Basque music can be found in his compositions. In this historic release, we can finally hear Ravel’s orchestral music being interpreted by the Basque musicians of the Basque National Orchestra. These performances of some of the most fantastic orchestral scores of the 20th century also shed light on the Basque influences in Ravel’s music.

Playlists for April

Looking for new music? Our selection of curated playlists has you covered with music to complement the season, moment, or activity! Immerse yourself in the rich, warm sounds of Magnificent Choral, relax with Rainy Day Chill, and get a little extra pep in your step with unCLASSIFIED’s Happy Vibes playlist, and find some inner peace with Grand Piano’s Uplifting Piano Tunes. Happy listening!


Don’t forget to follow Naxos on these streaming sites

Naxos Sheet Music Publishing

Naxos Sheet Music Publishing offers high quality sheet music editions from a fine collection of works, composers and arrangers, such as Debussy, Lehár, Brahms, Breiner, Janáček, Mussorgsky, Bériot, Kreutzer, Rode, Spohr and Vieuxtemps. From 19th-century violin concertos to contemporary Scandinavian piano music, the website presents music scores that may be downloaded as a PDF file to be printed later, purchased as a printed copy, or even rented. Naxos Publishing's catalogue is continuously expanding as more compositions and arrangements are added, and is yet another example of Naxos' dedication to every aspect of music.


HIGHLIGHTED COLLECTIONS
GP847-48

J.S. Bach Cello Suites for solo piano
Play Bach's famous cello suites in beautiful new arrangements for piano by Eleonor Bindman.

8.574081

Beautiful Guitar Duos
Classical Guitar magazine says they are ‘full of joyful, intoxicating rhythms, catchy melodies and riffs, and enough moments of delicate beauty to allow for introspection and reflection’.

Explore the collection of sheet music editions for two guitars by Kemal Belevi.

8.574256

Caressing Your Soul – Calm Romantic Piano Music
Peter Breiner introduces a collection of tranquil and serene pieces to provide solace, relief and peace of mind in an oasis of calming music.

Visit publishing.naxos.com and browse our catalogue of high-quality sheet music editions!

Visit Presto Classical to get up to 40% off Hi-Res Downloads on the Ondine, Orfeo & OehmsClassics labels

Until 17 May, Presto Classical is offering up to 30% off all recordings on the Capriccio label, including downloads. The promotion includes some brand new recordings.


HIGHLIGHTED RELEASES
ODE1334-2
C984191
OC985
ODE1332-5
C200091
OC984
ODE1330-2
C998201
OC1710
ODE1296-2
C913161A
OC469

Celebrate Beethoven

Grand Piano
Label of the Month
Check the email message for your free download link
Artist of the Month
Nicolas Horvath
Nicolas Horvath
Marin Alsop named Performance Today’s 2021 Classical Woman of the Year
© Adriane White
Opus Arte wins BBC Music Magazine Award with Die Walküre
Spectacular performance of Puccini’s La Bohème
Andreas Ihlebæk at the Norwegian Spellemann Awards
Shostakovich’s melancholic quartet featured in The Queen’s Gambit
Visit Presto Classical to get up to 30% off on the Capriccio label
Podcast: Music networking on the Inca Trails.
Robert Trevino conducts Ravel with the Basque National Orchestra
Playlists for April
Naxos Sheet Music Publishing
Naxos Sheet Music Publishing
Specials from ArkivMusic
Label of the Month
Check the email message for your free download link
Grand Piano
Artist of the Month
Nicolas Horvath
Opus Arte wins BBC Music Magazine Award with Die Walküre
Marin Alsop named Performance Today’s 2021 Classical Woman of the Year
Andreas Ihlebæk at the Norwegian Spellemann Awards
Robert Trevino conducts Ravel with the Basque National Orchestra
Spectacular performance of Puccini’s La Bohème
Visit Presto Classical to get up to 30% off on the Capriccio label
Playlists for April
Podcast: Music networking on the Inca Trails.
Shostakovich’s melancholic quartet featured in The Queen’s Gambit
Naxos Sheet Music Publishing
Specials from ArkivMusic