25years NEW ON NAXOS The World’s Leading Classical Music Label FEBRUARY 2012 Also Available on Blu-ray Audio This Month’s Other Highlights © Mark Dellas © 2012 Naxos Rights International Limited · Contact Us: [email protected] www.naxos.com · www.classicsonline.com · www.naxosmusiclibrary.com NEW ON NAXOS | FEBRUARY 2012 8.572441 Playing Time: 76:45 Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907) String Quartet in G minor Op 27 (arr Alf Årdal) String Quartet in F major (arr Alf Årdal) Arne NORDHEIM (1931-2010) • Rendezvous Oslo Camerata • Stephan Barratt-Due Grieg’s String Quartet in G minor has long established itself as one of the finest such works of the second half of the nineteenth century. The distinction of its thematic material, and its use in cyclical form, is reinforced by an ultimately victorious motto theme. The F major Quartet was written later, but remained unfinished, but it too is a fertile creation with a strong dance profile. Both works are heard in Alf Årdal’s imaginative arrangements for string orchestra. Arne Nordheim, Norway’s leading living composer, wrote Rendezvous as a quartet but expanded it in 1986. It is an intense, moving, and beautifully crafted work. Stephan Barratt-Due has been artistic director of the Barratt Due Institute of Music since 1985, a conservatory in Oslo founded in 1927 by his grandparents and now one of the main educational institutions of music in Norway. Barratt-Due is among the leading violin professors in Scandinavia, and under his leadership the Oslo Camerata has become increasingly in demand both nationally and internationally. Companion Titles 8.550879 8.557890 8.570840 8.570871-72 © Dag Thorenfeldt 2 NEW ON NAXOS | FEBRUARY 2012 JoAnn Falletta 8.559705 Playing Time: 58:39 George GERSHWIN (1898-1937) • Concerto in F Rhapsody No 2 • I Got Rhythm Variations Orion Weiss, piano Buffalo Philharmonic • JoAnn Falletta George Gershwin’s Concerto in F was a response to demands for a ‘proper concerto’ after the success of Rhapsody in Blue, avoiding programmatic content while providing a feast of tunes both uplifting and nostalgic. Originally intended as music for a film, his up-beat Rhapsody No. 2 describes the bustling Manhattan cityscape while under construction. Sourced from his hit musical Girl Crazy, I Got Rhythm Variations was Gershwin’s last full score. Pianist Orion Weiss is one of the most sought-after soloists and collaborators of his generation of JoAnn Falletta young American musicians. Pianist Orion Weiss holds a leading position among American musicians of his generation. His impressive list of awards includes the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award, the Gilmore © Mark Dellas - Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at The Juilliard School and the Mieczysław Munz Scholarship. JoAnn Falletta serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symphony in the United States and Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland. Her Naxos recordings include the double GRAMMY® Award winning disc of works by John Corigliano and GRAMMY® nominated discs of works of Tyberg, Dohnányi, Fuchs, Schubert, and Respighi. Also Available on Blu-ray Audio Orion Weiss © Leslie van Stelten - Orion Weiss NBD0025 3 NEW ON NAXOS | FEBRUARY 2012 Krzysztof PENDERECKI (b 1933) Sinfoniettas • Oboe Capriccio Artur Pachlewski, clarinet • Jean-Louis Capezzali, oboe Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra • Antoni Wit Three Pieces in Old Style • Serenade • Sinfonietta No 1 Intermezzo for 24 strings • Capriccio for Oboe and String Orchestra Sinfonietta No 2 Composed over a period of some thirty years, the six string works in this programme cover the full stylistic range of Penderecki’s towering compositional career. The Sinfoniettas are transcriptions of two chamber works, impassioned in texture, courting elegy and terse gesture alike. With the Three Pieces in Old Style we are in the world of Baroque pastiche, whereas introspective intensity runs through the Serenade of 1997. Radicalism informs the Intermezzo whilst the Capriccio, written a decade earlier, reveals Penderecki’s lighter, more piquant side in scintillating fashion. ‘Antoni Wit’s Penderecki series for Naxos has been uniformly excellent… Top recommendation’. (ClassicsToday.com on 8.572032) Antoni Wit, one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors, studied conducting with Henryk Czyz and composition with Krzysztof Penderecki at the Academy of Music in Kraków, subsequently continuing his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 2002 he became managing and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. 8.572212 Playing Time: 58:10 Companion Titles 8.557980 8.570450 8.572211 8.572032 BARGAIN OF WANT LIST THE MONTH © J. Multarzynski 4 NEW ON NAXOS | FEBRUARY 2012 Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Complete Orchestral Works [9 CDs boxed set] Orchestre National de Lyon • Jun Märkl This collection contains all Debussy’s works for orchestra as well as many orchestral arrangements of his piano music. Together these display a rich panorama of Debussian sound and a remarkable insight into the composer. Established arrangements by Debussy’s contemporaries, including Ravel and Caplet, are complemented by more recent arrangements from composers such as Colin Matthews and Robin Holloway. The conductor Jun Märkl believes that Debussy ‘set up a model of orchestration for the rest of the twentieth century’ and it is with this conviction that he draws from the Orchestre National de Lyon such ‘world-class playing’ (American Record Guide). Jun Märkl took up his job as musical director of the Lyon National Orchestra in September 2005, and in 2007/8 he became principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the MDR Sinfonieorchester. 8.509002 Playing Time: 9:08:49 ‘A richly satisfying collection, immaculately recorded, with its full measure of rarities.’ Gramophone on CD 2 ‘This conductor/orchestra partnership is clearly something out of the ordinary…’ Fanfare on CD 3 ‘These treasurable pieces have never sounded finer on disc.’ Classic FM on CD 5 5 NEW ON NAXOS | FEBRUARY 2012 Leonardo BALADA (b 1933) Caprichos No 1 ‘Homage to Federico García Lorca’ Caprichos No 5 ‘Homage to Isaac Albéniz’ A Little Night Music in Harlem • Reflejos Bertrand Piertrand Piétu, guitar • Aldo Mata, cello • Tatiana Franco, flute Iberian Chamber Orchestra • José Luis Temes Catalan-born Leonardo Balada fuses tradition with modernity and folk with the avant-garde, producing music of stunning sonorities. Caprichos No. 1 pays homage to the poet Lorca in a blend of virtuosic writing and transformative dance rhythms. In Caprichos No. 5, based on Albéniz’s piano music, distorted melodies are revealed, as well as instruments engaging in exciting duels. A Little Night Music in Harlem sees Mozart translated via surrealist sleight of hand, whilst Reflejos balances lament with typically incendiary brilliance. José Luis Temes has conducted almost all Spanish and many foreign orchestras, and in his career as a conductor has directed the premières of some 300 works. He has recorded over seventy albums, often of Spanish contemporary music. In 2008 he was awarded the National Prize of Spain for Music Performance. Companion Titles BALADA Caprichos Nos 2, 3 and 4 8.572176 BALADA No-res (Nothing), Ebony Fantasies 8.557343 8.572625 Playing Time: 73:20 BALADA María Sabina 8.570425 BALADA Cristóbal Colón 8.660237-38 7 47313 26257 1 World Première Recordings Tomás MARCO (b 1942) • Symphonies No 2 ‘Espacio cerrado’ • No 9 ‘Thalassa’* • No 8 ‘Gaia’s Dance’* Malaga Philharmonic • José Serebrier * World Première Recordings Madrid-born Tomás Marco is a multi award-winning and prolific composer whose compact Symphony No. 2 is a single ‘Espacio cerrado’ or ‘Closed Space’, expressed using a massive orchestra. As the subtitle ‘Gaia’s Dance’ suggests, the colourful and rhythmic Symphony No. 8 borrows elements of dances from different parts of the world. Marco’s Symphony No. 9 draws inspiration from the primeval sea spirit ‘Thalassa’, and combines studies in sonority with medieval music sources to create a work which unfolds in a single, extended breath. GRAMMY®-winner conductor and composer José Serebrier is one of today’s most recorded classical artists. He has received 39 GRAMMY® nominations in recent years. Companion Titles Benet CASABLANCAS The Dark Backward of Time 8.579002 Benet CASABLANCAS Seven Scenes from Hamlet 8.579004 Xavier BENGUEREL Concertante 8.572571 Lorenzo PALOMO Cantos del alma, Sinfonía a Granada 8.570420 8.572684 Playing Time: 61:58 7 47313 26847 4 6 NEW ON NAXOS | FEBRUARY 2012 World Première Recordings Evening Songs Delius and Ireland Songs arranged for cello and piano Julian Lloyd Webber, cello • Jiaxin Cheng, cello • John Lenehan, piano Frederick DELIUS (1862-1934) Sunset • Birds in the High Hall Garden* • In the Seraglio Garden • Love’s Philosophy • Over the Mountains High • Serenade from Hassan • Through Long, Long Years • Little Birdie • Slumber Song • With Your Blue Eyes John IRELAND (1879-1962) Spring Sorrow • Evening Song* • Sea Fever • The Holy Boy • Baby • The Three Ravens • Hope • Ladslove • Summer Schemes • Her Song • In Summer Woods* * World Première Recordings Frederick Delius’s beautiful songs show his extraordinary gift for melody. John Ireland admired Delius enormously and his songs are inspired by a wide variety of literature, including his hugely popular setting of John Masefield’s Sea Fever. Renowned cellist Julian Lloyd Webber celebrates both composers’ remarkable melodic gifts in these sensitive arrangements, and pianist John Lenehan has received great acclaim for his Naxos recordings of Ireland’s complete piano music. Julian Lloyd Webber is one of today’s leading cellists. He has given the premieres of more than fifty new works for cello and has inspired new compositions from composers as diverse as Malcolm Arnold and Joaquin Rodrigo to James MacMillan and 8.572902 Playing Time: 63:28 Philip Glass. His partnership with John Lenehan began in the mid-1970s and they have since given recitals together all over the world.