Naxos Classical Spotlight

The 1935 classic Mexican film Redes continues our series of early editions, for which the music scores have been restored and recorded in performances by the PostClassical Ensemble. This week’s podcast introduces the world première recording of the complete score by Silvestre Revueltas, which accompanies a restored print of the film, released this month on DVD. Redes represents a towering meeting of minds in terms of direction, cinematography and music. Raymond Bisha sets the film in the context of Mexico’s social revolution and nascent film industry, highlighting the score’s transcendent and epic qualities.

Although it makes an immediate connection on a musical level, Rimsky-Korsakov’s First Symphony had a provenance to which few of us can easily relate today. Russia’s 19th-century societal hierarchy classed the young composer just ahead of peasantry, but Rimsky-Korsakov successfully managed to juggle his early leanings for both music and the Russian Navy, with a little help from his illustrious teacher, Mily Balakirev. Raymond Bisha presents Rimsky-Korsakov’s First and Third Symphonies.

Raymond Bisha puts Victor Herbert’s underperformed cello concertos under the spotlight in this week’s podcast. The two works form just a small part of the substantial legacy the Irish-American composer left behind, following his death in 1924. Herbert was feted in his time for his 40-plus operettas that enlivened Broadway and, as a founding member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, he’s the object of gratitude for many of today’s composers whose rights and benefits are protected by the foundations he helped to lay. The fact that Herbert’s Second Cello Concerto was the inspiration for Dvořák’s great B minor Cello Concerto in itself reinforces the assertion that his music deserves to be less lost in the sands of time.

Quirky, catchy and disturbing, Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale is also one of his most immediately engaging works. Conceived as a rich procession of narration, acting, dancing and instrumental interludes, the work leaves the listener ruminating on its message long after the final shot from the percussion. Raymond Bisha introduces the work, from its individual parts to the moral sum of its whole.

Enrique Granados was a Spanish nationalist composer and outstanding pianist whose orchestral works have remained understandably overshadowed by the popularity of his piano compositions. This imbalance is now redressed by Naxos with the release of three volumes of orchestral music to mark the centenary of the composer’s death in 1916. Raymond Bisha presents the works on the first volume, which are all receiving their world première recordings.

Ravel’s opera L’heure espagnole combines an improbable plot with impeccable melodic charm and orchestral transparency. Raymond Bisha introduces this month’s new recording from Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre National de Lyon, which is coupled with the last work Ravel composed, the song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée.

Surprising Sedaka…energised Emerson…distinctive Duke…great Gershwin. Manhattan Intermezzo is a musical melting pot of a CD. Join Raymond Bisha in his podcast of discovery.

Although Haydn’s operas are little-performed today, many of them were immensely popular during his lifetime and were staged far beyond the wealthy Esterhàzy court for which they were written. With subject matter ranging from very dramatic to very funny, Haydn sets the atmosphere for each of his stage works (including those for marionettes) with an overture in his consummate style. Raymond Bisha presents this latest Naxos release of rarely recorded 18th-century music.

This month sees the latest Naxos release of music by Roberto Sierra. A native of Puerto Rico, Sierra’s compositional style marries his cultural heritage with a contemporary idiom. In this podcast, Raymond Bisha showcases the infectious rhythms and colourful orchestrations that pervade the composer’s award-winning Sinfonía No. 3 ‘La Salsa’, throwing into relief the captivating lyricism.

Being a contemporary of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven was both a blessing and a curse for Simon Mayr: while he was able to deftly assimilate and rival the triumvirate’s output, he became overshadowed by them in posterity. Raymond Bisha presents the world première recording of Mayr’s Requiem in G minor, a stunning blend of Germanic construction and Italianate vocalism, that makes some amends for the work’s undue neglect over the centuries.