Naxos Classical Spotlight

Conductor JoAnn Falletta talks with radio host Peter Hall about her recording of Respighi’s Roman Trilogy, her 24th release for Naxos with the Buffalo Philharmonic. Respighi’s tone poems employ a large symphony orchestra and use a myriad of effects to take the listener through time, space and musical styles. The resultant portraits of Roman festivals, fountains and pine trees are both brilliant and unprecedented. Colour and imagination are central to the cinematic vibrancy that underpins Respighi’s magnificent orchestral kaleidoscope of aspects of Rome, both ancient and modern.

Alberto Nepomuceno was a herald of Brazilian musical nationalism. He was one of the first composers in his country to employ elements of folklore in his compositions, he encouraged younger composers such as VillaLobos, and his music was conducted by Richard Strauss. The Prelude to O Garatuja, an incomplete opera, is one of his best-known works and an example of a truly Brazilian lyric comedy. Série Brasileira is a vivacious suite that employs maxixe rhythms and ends with the feverish batuque dance, while the Symphony in G minor is one of the earliest such examples by a Brazilian, a heroic and lyric structure revealing the influence of Brahms.

Born in 1887, Florence Beatrice Price went on to become one of the first prominent African-American composers. Following a move to Chicago in 1927, her career as a composer took off, not least following the award of several prizes intended to support black composers. This success brought her to the attention of the director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who agreed to give the premiere of her First Symphony in 1933. This represented the first time a major American orchestra had ever performed a piece by an African-American composer. Raymond Bisha introduces a new recording of Price’s First and Fourth Symphonies.

Franz Liszt was one of music history’s first superstars, whose stunning technique and charismatic stage presence facilitated his development of the solo piano concert format. This release puts his 12 Transcendental Studies centre stage, where they share the spotlight with award-winning pianist Boris Giltburg, an emerging superstar in his own right whose pianism clothes Liszt’s music with impeccable artistry. While many series of studies succeed in developing technique, they are rarely very exciting musically. Liszt’s works, however, embody rich, alluring worlds that can be accessed only by a performer with outstanding technical expertise and penetrating musical vision. Raymond Bisha presents Boris Giltburg’s latest Naxos release.

Romuald Twardowski was born in Lithuania in 1930. He pursued post-graduate studies in Poland before becoming a student of Nadia Boulanger in Paris. The works on this new release, for violin and orchestra, cover a fascinating spectrum of styles. From his Spanish Fantasy, to music written for young performers (not that you’d guess it from the impact it makes), the ‘new simplicity’ (Twardowski’s words) of his Violin Concerto, Niggunim with its roots in Poland’s ancient Jewish music, and Capriccio in Blue, a cross-pollinating tribute to George Gershwin, the ear remains captivated throughout.

Guitar Gala Night comprises performances by the Amadeus Guitar Duo and the Duo Gruber & Maklar in a programme that’s a veritable variety show, combining original compositions with arrangements for one, two and four guitars. Ranging from the abstract to the descriptive, the earliest piece (1612) represents dance music by Michael Praetorius, while the most recent (1998) is a portrait of performer Dale Kavanagh’s own daughter, Melissa. Music by Boccherini, Borodin, de Falla and Giuliani make up the rest of this irresistible programme, presented here by Raymond Bisha.

Raymond Bisha introduces us to the flip-side of Rossini the opera composer, who spent the last 40 years of his life in operatic retirement, instead composing some 200 vocal and solo piano pieces (his Sins of Old Age) whilst also indulging in the pleasantries of life as a gourmand and amateur chef. The final release in Naxos’ 11-volume edition of the Sins of Old Age again presents the mastermind of the project, pianist Alessandro Marangoni. He features solo on the lion’s share of the series’ recordings, but is joined for this final instalment by seven vocal soloists.

The three newly published pieces on this recording were written in the decade following Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s flight to the United States in 1939 in the wake of the proclamation of anti-Jewish laws by Italy’s fascist regime. The programme includes his Concerto No. 3 for Violin and Piano (1939–40), written for no less a figure than Jascha Heifetz; the String Trio for violin, viola and cello (1950); and the Sonata for Violin and Cello (1950) with its “diabolically difficult” finale, considered by the composer to be his best piece of chamber music. Raymond Bisha presents.

Raymond Bisha introduces a programme of orchestral music by Alfred Bruneau (1857-1934), a composition student of Jules Massenet and one of the most important yet overlooked figures in turn-of-the-century French musical life. Bruneau’s desire for theatrical realism in his operas mirrored the literary aspirations of his friend Émile Zola. Conductor Darrell Ang and the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra perform music drawn from two of Bruneau’s operas, Messidor and Naïs Micoulin, and his ‘drame lyrique’ L’Attaque du moulin(The Attack on the Mill).

The last decade in the life of Austrian composer Frank Schreker (1878-1934) proved a tragic conclusion to his hitherto highly successful career as a teacher, conductor, administrator and composer. In the mid-1920s critics were bearing down on him for failing to step in line with developing compositional styles; by the 1930s his work had come to the attention of the Nazis who arranged his removal from teaching duties at the Berlin Hochschule; two strokes followed, with death coming shortly after. Prior to this dark chapter, Schreker had enjoyed a fine reputation as a composer, particularly of opera, his output rivalling that of Richard Strauss. Raymond Bisha presents a programme featuring three of his less well-known, highly approachable orchestral works, composed in those earlier and happier times.