The Naxos Blog

Podcast: Shostakovich Symphony No 7 ‘Leningrad’

Naxos-FC — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:24:17 +0000

Vasily Petrenko’s Award-winning survey of the Shostakovich symphonies with the RLPO, now reaches the eighth instalment with the release of the epic ‘Leningrad’ Symphony.

Here he talks to Edward Seckerson about the work.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: 8.573057

Podcast: Leonard Slatkin talks with Gail Wein about Rachmaninov and life in Detroit

Naxos-FC — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:01 +0000

Leonard Slatkin enjoys close ties to Sergei Rachmaninov: his great-uncle brought the composer to the US and conducted the première of his second symphony. Slatkin tells Gail Wein about his recordings of Rachmaninov Symphonies with Detroit Symphony, and his life in Motor City.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.573051

Podcast: Composer Mohammed Fairouz talks with Gail Wein about his new CD of chamber and vocal music, Native Informant

Naxos-FC — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:02 +0000

Mohammed Fairouz’s music is distinctive for his blending of western and middle-eastern sonorities. He talks about how a musician can have the same effect as a storyteller, and tells us about a lullaby for a newborn baby…and a 300-year-old violin.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.559744

Podcast: JoAnn Falletta talks to Gail Wein about her new Duke Ellington CD with Buffalo Philharmonic

Naxos-FC — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 00:00:13 +0000

Duke Ellington wrote serious music for symphony orchestras […] with great power. I feel that he single-handedly elevated jazz to a level of artistry comparable to all the other art forms. The music is very beautiful; it’s very symphonic, very orchestral.

Album Details…

Catalogue No.: 8.559737

The album will be released in Europe throughout February, and in the US and Asia Pacific from 26 February.

Podcast: Tan Dun’s Symphonic Poem of 3 Notes, Orchestral Theatre, Concerto for Orchestra

Naxos-FC — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:00:27 +0000

Gail Wein discusses Tan Dun‘s recording of Concerto for Orchestra

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.570608

Podcast: Pater Noster – A Choral Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer

Naxos-FC — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:00:25 +0000

Raymond Bisha discusses The King’s Singers‘ recording of Pater Noster – A Choral Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.572987

Podcast: Fung ‘Dreamscapes’, Violin Concerto, Glimpses

Naxos-FC — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:00:10 +0000

Raymond Bisha introduces us to the contemporary Canadian composer Vivian Fung’s superb new recording Dreamscapes. Her Violin Concerto featuring soloist Kristin Lee is an intensely lyrical and virtuoso work in which West and East collide to create music of remarkably fresh sophistication. Glimpses and her piano concertoDreamscape, for prepared piano, explore contrasts ranging from hauntingly sustained calm and tranquillity to moments of brutal power.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.573009

Podcast: Fuchs Atlantic Riband, American Rhapsody, Divinum Mysterium, Concerto Grosso

Naxos-FC — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:18 +0000

Kenneth Fuchs is one of America’s leading composers and his latest collaboration with award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra reveals the breadth of his achievement. Its opening work, Atlantic Riband, evokes the struggle and ultimate victory of ocean-crossing immigrants to America in an orchestral showpiece of power and splendour. In this podcast, Raymond Bisha introduces us to this, and to Fuchs’ other orchestral and chamber works on this wonderful new recording.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.559723

Podcast: Schuman Symphonies

Naxos-FC — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:00:18 +0000

In this podcast, conductor Gerard Schwarz first takes us through the transformation of Seattle Symphony during his 26 years tenure at the helm. He then talks to Gail Wein about the thrill of recording, and how he found the symphonies of the legendary American composer, educator and administrator William Schuman his most interesting project—‘a revolution and a great joy’! Listen to find out why Schwarz finds Schuman’s 8th Symphony “exquisite, brilliant and wonderful”!

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.505228

Podcast: Wolf-Ferrari Wind Concertinos

Naxos-FC — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:00:44 +0000

In this podcast, Raymond Bisha helps you discover Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s delightful wind concertinos. The Italian composer is better known for his operatic compositions but he wrote a number of sublimely and expressive orchestral works, including the three melodic, rhythmically buoyant, and at times elegiac wind concertos featured on this new release.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.572921

Podcast: Weinberg Complete Piano Works Vol 3

Naxos-FC — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00:24 +0000

‘As many of Weinberg’s works for solo piano have been virtually unknown until recently, by virtue of the fact that this music survived both Nazism and Communism they would merit further investigation. This music has themes to which anyone can relate—to survival in the midst of war and/or oppression, to love, to despair, and to hope. Weinberg’s music richly embodies these, often through the most seemingly simple, folk-like means that continue to engage one’s curiosity’. In this podcast, Allison Brewster Franzetti talks to Gail Wein about the enigmatic composer’s rich piano repertoire.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: Grand Piano GP610

Podcast: Shostakovich Symphony No 10

Naxos-FC — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 00:00:26 +0000

Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO’s Shostakovich series for Naxos has attracted critical acclaim and numerous plaudits, including ‘Orchestral Recording of the Year’ at the 2011 Gramophone Awards for Symphony No 10. In this fascinating podcast, Vasily Petrenko talks to Edward Seckerson of The Independent about his relationship with the Shostakovich symphonies and his insights into the great composer’s—and fellow Russian’s—life and work. They also discuss the 10th Symphony, which Petrenko describes as “a perfect piece”, “less extreme than the other symphonies”, but also “very difficult to perform”.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.572461

Podcast: Banks’s SIX Pieces for Orchestra

Naxos-FC — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:58 +0000

Edward Seckerson of The Independent interviews Tony Banks.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.572986

Podcast: Delius/Ireland Evening Songs (arranged for cello and piano)

Naxos-FC — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:56 +0000

Edward Seckerson of The Independent interviews Julian Lloyd Webber.

Album Details…
Catalogue No.: 8.572902

All About Bitrates

Naxos — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:45:32 +0000

My last post was about the frequencies missing from MP3s.¹

Today, I want to talk about bit rates.

To make sensible decisions about bit rates, it helps to understand a bit about how MP3 encoding works. When your computer makes a CD into an MP3, it has three main ways of making the music take up less space:

1) It throws out sounds you probably can’t hear – either because they’re “masked” by louder sounds, or because they’re only audible to a very small proportion of humans. Done right, this is an elegant exercise in efficiency. Done wrong (or too much) you music sounds tiny, thin and empty.

2) It describes the sound in terms of the shape of the wave, instead of as a big long list of values. If the wave isn’t a very complicated shape, it can do this with virtually no loss of quality.

Here are two MP3s of the same sound – a simple 440Hz sine wave. This is just about the easiest thing to make into an MP3. Although the first file is 10x the size of the second, they sound identical because you don’t even need 16kb to record 1 second of sine wave. Like a stick of rock, the file just says “440hz at -3dBFS” all the way through.

Here it is at 160kbps (mono)

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Sine-Wave-160kbps.mp3"]

Here it is at 16kbps (mono)

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Sine-Wave-16kbps.mp3"]

With our nice simple sine wave, there’s no extra data to throw out, so they sound the same. If we give it something really complicated, though, we’ll start to notice a difference.²

Here’s a bit of Debussy’s La Mer³, as a very high quality MP3:

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/La-Mer-Excerpt-320kbps-MP3.mp3"]

That sounds pretty good to me, but here it is again, a tenth of the size:

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/La-Mer-Excerpt-32kbps-MP3.mp3"]

Suddenly it sounds like it’s being played down a telephone. A file this size can happily hold a simple sine wave, but in trying to describe the complex harmony and sonority of Debussy’s orchestration, it has to make some cuts. All the notes are still there, but we’ve lost a lot of what is beautiful about it. When we’re looking for a bit rate that works for us, this is the outcome we’re looking to avoid.

3) Once the fat is trimmed off (1) and the important sounds reduced to their component waves (2), the computer looks for commonly-occuring patterns in what remains, so the information in them only needs to be recorded once.

In our first example above, that means saying “440Hz, -3bDFS” to define the single note, and “ditto” for the rest of the file.

With La Mer, the opportunities are less obvious, but if you see time in 44100ths of a second like the computer does, there’s plenty of repetition here. By itself, this third type of compression is lossless – you get exactly the same data out as you put in, but it takes up less space while being stored.

The combination of these three techniques allow us to make the files much, much smaller. Even the highest-quality MP3s are just a fifth of the size of the original files, but they can be much smaller.

The goal is to find the smallest file size that sounds good to you.

Let’s start with a 16kbps file. At this size, you could fit more than five days of music on a single CD:

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/La-Mer-Short-Excerpt-16kbps.mp3"]

I want you to make up your own mind, but I think you’ll agree that sounded pretty bad. This next one is twice the size, at 32kbps. This would let you put 54 hours of music on a CD.

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/La-Mer-Short-Excerpt-32kbps.mp3"]

This one is twice the size again: 64kbps. You’d get 27 hours of this on one CD.

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/La-Mer-Short-Excerpt-64kbps.mp3"]

Next is 128kbps, or eight times the size we started at. You’d get thirteen and a half hours of this on a CD.

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/La-Mer-Short-Excerpt-128kbps.mp3"]

Double that again, and you’re at sixteen times the size we started at. At 256kbps, you’d get six hours and 47 minutes of music on a CD. The Amazon MP3 store delivers music in this format.⁴

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/La-Mer-Short-Excerpt-256kbps.mp3"]

Finally, the highest bit rate supported by the MP3 format is 320kbps. That’s 20 times the size we started at, and 22% of the size of the original. You’d get about five hours and twenty minutes of this on a CD. If you buy music from ClassicsOnline this is what you’ll get.⁵

[mejsaudio src="http://blog.naxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/La-Mer-Short-Excerpt-320kbps.mp3"]

You can try all this with your own music, indeed I’d encourage you to. Hook up your computer to your stereo, make some MP3s (and other files), shuffle them up, and try to tell them apart. Remember: bigger is not always better. If you want a fast car, you don’t buy the one that uses the most petrol. You buy the one that goes fastest. If you’re looking for an audio format that sounds good, don’t go for the one that uses the most data. Go for the one that sounds best, and have fun.

Corrections:

I originally (and wrongly) wrote that the Amazon MP3 store delivered 320kbps files, not 256kbps files. This has now been corrected.

A typo in one of the footnotes said of Variable Bit Rate encoding “there’s no good reason to now use it” which is the exact opposite of what I meant, which is “there’s no good reason to not use it.”

Footnotes:

¹All the files on this page are MP3s. This has become the format of choice for many mainstream download stores (including ClassicsOnline and Amazon) because it works on almost everything. Many of the same basic principles apply to both AAC (used by iTunes) and Ogg Vorbis (used by Spotify). These are both more sophisticated formats that avoid some of the more complex inherent weaknesses of MP3 at the expense of ubiquitous compatibility with all players. In general, either AAC or Ogg Vorbis should sound better than MP3 at a given bit rate, so if getting the best possible sound out of the smallest possible file is a priority for you, I’d suggest you check them out.

²Simple sounds are easier to encode than complicated music, so it tends to be that you only notice that you’re listening to encoded music when something complicated or sudden happens. It’s in these places where the bit rate isn’t high enough. To overcome this, modern MP3 encoders use “variable bit rate” encoding, where a small amount of data is used for the easy bits, and a lot of data is used for the difficult bits. It averages out at the overall target bit rate. I haven’t addressed variable bit rate encoding in the main body of this post because it’s pretty ubiquitous now, and there’s no good reason to not use it.

³This album was produced and engineered by Tim Handley, who has won numerous Grammy awards as a producer.

⁴iTunes also delivers 256kbps files, but in the AAC format¹.

⁵If that doesn’t sound good to you, then you might like to try theclassicalshop.net, eclassical.com or hdtracks.com - all of which will sell you full CD-quality downloads of just about any Naxos record, and many of those from the labels we distribute.

Dude. Where’s my frequencies?

Naxos — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:32:09 +0000

I’ve been putting together a blog post on the way to get the best sound out of MP3s, but there are so many elements to deal with, I thought I’d tackle it in pieces. For this post, I’m just going to talk about the missing frequencies in an MP3.

One of the ways we can fit more music into an MP3 is by discarding the least important information. High frequency sounds have a lot going on very quickly, and they can take up a lot of space, so there’s a lot to be gained from getting rid of them.¹

Still. We don’t want data to be missing. If the range of human hearing is 20-20,000Hz, and everything above 16,000Hz is missing, that feels like a lot. It seems like that would be 20% of the music.

That’s not how frequencies work, though. Every time we go up an octave, the frequency doubles. Going up like this, numbers can get pretty big, pretty fast, and it makes the high frequencies look a lot more important than they really are. If you wanted to make a piano covering the entire range of human hearing², you’d need to give it 120 keys instead of the normal 88. If, halfway through building it, you decided you only wanted it to go up to 10,000Hz, not 20,000Hz, you wouldn’t remove half the keys. You’d only remove 12 of them – seven white ones and five black ones.

In any case, 20,000Hz is the highest anybody can hear, not the highest everybody can hear. Above that, your pets might notice, but you won’t. Our sensitivity to high frequencies deteriorates with age, so for most adults the ceiling is more like 16,000Hz. Your kids can probably hear things you can’t, and your pets can hear things your kids can’t.

If, like me, you’ve spent a lot of time around very loud music, your hearing might top out even lower. I can’t hear much above 13,000Hz.

Try it for yourself: this is a 30-second sweep across the full range of human hearing, from 20hz to 20,000hz. Hit the play button, and listen until it goes quiet: that’s as high as you can hear.³

[If you're reading this in a feed-reader, you might have to scroll to the bottom of the page or visit the site the see the player]

It goes up by 666Hz/Second, so the frequencies are:

Start: 20Hz
1 Second: 686Hz
2 Seconds: 1,352Hz
3 Seconds: 2,018Hz – The highest note in the Queen of the Night’s Aria
4 Seconds: 2,684Hz
5 Seconds: 3,350Hz
6 Seconds: 4,016Hz – The highest note on a piano⁴
7 Seconds: 4,682Hz
8 Seconds: 5,348Hz
9 Seconds: 6014Hz
10 Seconds: 6,680Hz
11 Seconds: 7,346Hz
12 Seconds: 8,012Hz
13 Seconds: 8,678Hz
14 Seconds: 9,344Hz
15 Seconds: 10,010Hz
16 Seconds: 10,678Hz
17 Seconds: 11,342Hz
18 Seconds: 12,008 Hz
19 Seconds: 12,674 Hz
20 Seconds: 13,340Hz – This is where it goes quiet for me ⁵
21 Seconds: 14,006Hz
22 Seconds: 14,672Hz
23 Seconds: 15,338Hz
24 Seconds: 16,004Hz – Very few adults can hear anything above here
25 Seconds: 16,670Hz – A 192kbps MP3 won’t have much above here
26 Seconds: 17,336Hz
27 Seconds: 18,002Hz – A 256kbps MP3 won’t have much above here
28 Seconds: 18,668Hz
29 Seconds: 19,334Hz – A 320kbps MP3 won’t have much above here
30 Seconds: 20,000Hz – Still audible to other animals⁶

There’s an argument that, while these frequencies might be inaudible by themselves, they add character to other sounds in ways that are perceptible to our ears. If this were true, it would be relatively straightforward to prove it and, as far I can see, nobody ever has. It also doesn’t stand up to common sense. Sounds simply don’t become more noticeable when there’s other noises, indeed, the opposite is widely accepted.

So there you go: unless you’re a dog, you can test your hearing and pick and MP3 format that only excludes frequencies you can’t hear. There are, of course, other aspects of MP3 encoding that affect the quality of the sound. Next time, we’ll look at bit rates, fixed and variable, and the effect these have on the sound.

¹The point I wanted to make here is way too nerdy for the first footnote.⁷

²Most notes produced by musical instruments are a combination of several related frequencies, overtones or harmonics. In the piano analogy, I’m only talking about the lowest (and loudest) of these frequencies, called the “fundamental”.

³This is a bit of fun, not a diagnostic tool. If you’re concerned about your hearing, you should see a professional. If you’re interested in playing around with acoustics, though, you should check out the tools at this site. The sound clip on this page is a linear sweep at constant amplitude (-3dBFS). If it seems to get louder and quieter over its range, that’s because your hearing is more sensitive to certain frequencies, (normally around the range of the human voice). This clip is itself encoded as an MP3, but because it contains an extremely simple sound, it doesn’t need to filter out the high frequencies. The MP3 specification is quite flexible on encoding, but all decoders are essentially the same, so I can be confident that your computer will decode the same sound that I get from this file, regardless of the software used to play it back.

⁴The fundamental frequency of the highest note on the piano is 4186.01Hz, but its overtones will extend upwards beyond the limit of human hearing. If you’re interested in this stuff, I’d recommend this video and, if you still want more detail, this one.

⁵I won’t speculate on what happened to the top end of my hearing, but Google Scholar is a good place to explore the considerable research on hearing loss in orchestral musicians.

⁶Dogs can hear up 60,000Hz, mice up to 90,000Hz and bats up to 120,000Hz.

⁷Ok. You’ve been warned. An MP3 describes a complex sound wave in terms of lots of little bits of a sine wave: “At this point, the wave goes up with a bump this tall and this long”. If you want to lose the rest of the day in articles about mathematics on Wikipedia, then it might help you to know that this is called a Fourier Series. The reason I bring all this up is because if you’re encoding music this way, the high frequencies take up a lot of space: at 20Hz, there are 20 wobbles in the line to describe each second of music. At 20,000Hz, there are 20,000 of them. By getting rid of a small number of high frequencies, you can get rid of a very large amount of data. The trick is to find the frequencies you won’t miss.

Podcast: John Rutter talks to Edward Seckerson about his new choral release

Naxos — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:21:02 +0000

In this exclusive audio podcast Rutter talks to Edward Seckerson about how a confirmed agnostic became immersed in a world of churches and choral paeans of praise. He recalls his gentle childhood, his doodlings at an old upright piano which was only there because the previous occupants couldn’t get it out of the door. He reflects on why he has never written a musical when his love of the genre and his ear for a good tune dictated he should. And on that note, what it was like to be a tunesmith at a time when it was so deeply unfashionable to be one.

The immensely popular choral composer had his first carol – the Shepherd’s Pipe Carol – published when he was still a teenager and went on to compose more than two dozen others. The royalties got bigger and so did the commissions. His reputation quickly spread Stateside where he still conducts every year at Carnegie Hall in New York. His latest recording for Naxos brings together three large-scale compositions spanning almost two decades. His Gloria was a milestone for him, the first of his pieces to open doors in America. Magnificat is a joyous setting, a kind of Latin American fiesta with “hit” numbers for soprano gently drawing sustenance from the world of musical theatre, and Te Deum springs its own big hymnic surprise at the close.

Album details

Catalogue No. 8.572653

Podcast: Vasily Petrenko talks to Edward Seckerson about his Shostakovich recording of Symphonies 1 & 3

Naxos — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:08:20 +0000

The latest instalment in Vasily Petrenko’s highly acclaimed cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies offers a telling flashback to the composer’s youth.

Symphony No.1 – his sensational symphonic debut – is, according to Petrenko, a whistle-stop tour through revolutionary Petrograd with Shostakovich donning the masks of comedy and tragedy in practical pursuit of his already highly developed sense of irony.

As Petrenko explains to Edward Seckerson, the really big influence here is Stravinsky’s Petrushka, (as witness the devilishly flashy solo piano part) and there is something of the feel of a silent movie in the flickering imagery. Symphony No.3 “The First of May” offers a rather more prescribed view of the Revolution with its brassy choral paean redolent of those striking propaganda posters.

Album Details…
Catalogue No. 8.572396

Podcast: Vasily Petrenko talks to Edward Seckerson about his Shostakovich recording of Symphony No 10

Naxos — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:52:16 +0000

In 2010 Vasily Petrenko was named Male Artist of the Year at the Classical Brit Awards. His ongoing cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies for Naxos has garnered extraordinary reviews and the latest in the series – the defiant 10th Symphony, regarded by many as the most perfectly balanced of all – represents yet another step forward in this extraordinary symphonic chronicle of Soviet life and times. In this exclusive audio podcast Petrenko talks to Edward Seckerson about the genesis of the cycle in general and the 10th Symphony in particular.

Album details
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572461

Podcast: Russian Music for Cello and Piano, with Wendy Warner and Irina Nuzova

Naxos — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:00:14 +0000

A podcast introduction to Russian Music for Cello & Piano, a new CD featuring cellist Wendy Warner and pianist Irina Nuzova. Writing in the Newark Star Ledger, Bradley Bamberger said “American cellist Wendy Warner pairs a huge, lustrous tone with diamond-edge virtuosity …” This recording features well established works like Rachmaniov’s Sonata in G minor, alongside such rarities as Nicolai Myaskovsky’s Sonata No. 2 in G minor. The program also includes music by Scriabin, Schnittke and Prokofiev, all played with wonderful virtuosity and emotional power. Come listen to the podcast, then buy the CD so you can hear the entire pieces.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Cedille CDR 90000 120

Podcast: Jose Serebrier’s Symphony No. 1

Naxos — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:00:05 +0000

Jose Serebrier was 16 years old when he wrote his Symphony No. 1, and although he is better known as a conductor, he has been an active composer for more than five decades. This podcast, and this CD, trace his musical journey through music he has composed in four different decades. Included are the Symphony No. 1, composed in 1956, his Double Bass Concerto, composed in 1971, the Violin Concerto, composed in 1991, and three shorter works composed in the past decade. On this CD, Jose Serebrier serves as both composer and conductor, and is joined by a stellar group of musicians – double bass virtuoso Gary Karr, violinist Philippe Quint, actor Simon Callow, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559648

Podcast: Music of the Spheres by Rued Langgaard

Naxos — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:00:39 +0000

For most of his life, Danish composer Rued Langgaard had great difficulty getting his music performed, and for decades after his death in 1952, his work was all but forgotten. That is now changing, thanks to Langgaard’s amazing music, and thanks to the efforts of people like conductor Thomas Dausgaard, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, who have been reintroducing this music to modern audiences. As the three works on this disc show, Langgaard was a composer with a unique vision, and exceptional talent. Seen from today’s perspective, it’s hard to believe there was ever any doubt about Langgaard’s music.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Dacapo 6.220535

Podcast: JoAnn Falletta and the music of Marcel Tyberg

Naxos — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:00:05 +0000

Were it not for Dr. Enrico Mihich, the music of Marcel Tyberg would almost certainly be lost forever. Tyberg entrusted all of his scores with Mihich, just before he was deported to Auschwitz. For more than six decades, Mihich carried the scores with him, trying to find a conductor who would pay attention to them. Finally, in 2005, Dr. Mihich met with JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic. Maestra Falletta saw what so many others had failed to see – that Tyberg’s music was original, beautiful and worth performing. This podcast, with it’s interview with JoAnn Falletta, traces the history of how she and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra came to rescue the music of Marcel Tyberg.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572236

Podcast: Clarinet Hive

Naxos — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:00:04 +0000

Evan Ziporyn is a composer, bass clarinettist, and has worked as a beekeeper. These interests collide in his piece “Hive”, a wonderful piece for four clarinets based on the sounds and activities of a honey bee hive. With music by Ziporyn, John Harbison, Astor Piazzolla, Gunther Schuller, Thomas Barker and Vincent Persichetti, this CD dives deep into the fascinating world of contemporary clarinet music. The performers on this CD include Evan Ziporyn, Theodore Schoen, Laura Ardan, Ricardo Morales, Timothy Paradise and James Ognibene.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572264

Podcast: The Beethoven Project Trio

Naxos — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:25 +0000

After almost 2 centuries, one would think that every piece by Ludwig van Beethoven has long since been performed and recorded – but it isn’t so. This podcast looks at the Beethoven Project Trio (pianist George Lepauw, violinist Sang Mee Lee, and cellist Wendy Warner) and their adventures as they gave the first US performances of several trios by Beethoven, along with the world premiere recordings of these works.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Cedille CDR 90000 118

Podcast: Antonio Salieri and his Requiem

Naxos — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:30:37 +0000

Antonio Salieri was a contemporary of Mozart’s and one of the most influential composers of his time. He remained a lesser known colleague of Mozart for almost 200 years, when the movie “Amadeus”, with F. Murray Abraham in the role of Salieri made him a household name, and led to a renewed interest in his music. This podcast looks at this new recording of his Requiem in C minor, one of the only recorded versions of this piece. It features the Gulbenkian Chorus and Orchestra of Lisbon, under the direction of Lawrence Foster.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Pentatone PTC5186359

Podcast: The Symphonies of William Schuman

Naxos — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:31 +0000

William Schuman was at various times President of the Juilliard School and President of Lincoln Centre. Despite being one of America’s finest arts administrators, Schuman also found time to be one of America’s most important composers of the 20th century. In this podcast, Dr. Joseph Polisi, Schuman’s friend, author of “American Muse: The Life and Times of WIlliam Schuman”, and the current President of Juilliard, talks about Schuman’s Symphonies. The performances included in this box set at podcast feature the Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.505228

Podcast: An introduction to Mozart Carmargo Guarnieri

Naxos — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:14 +0000

Mozart Carmargo Guarnieri is one of the finest Brazilian composers of the 20th century. Unfortunately, except for Naxos recordings, he is all but unknown outside his native country, having been overshadowed by his flamboyant landsman Heitor Villa-Lobos. In this podcast, Latin American music scholar James Melo talks about Guarnieri’s place in Brazilian music, and about his Piano Concertos 4 – 6, which offer an introduction to his music. Musical excerpts feature pianist Max Barros, with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Conlin.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.557667

Podcast: Marin Alsop and the Symphonies of Antonin Dvorak

Naxos — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:56 +0000

Czech composer Antonin Dvořák had, among his many talents, the gift of seemingly endless melody. His symphonies are filled with these marvelous tunes that seem to grow out of each other. This is one of the qualities that conductor Marin Alsop loves about his music, especially his symphonies. In this podcast, she talks about his Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8 and Symphony No. 9, and about recording them with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572112 and Naxos 8.570714

Podcast: Genia plays Gabriel Prokofiev’s Piano Book No. 1

Naxos — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:00:47 +0000

Gabriel Prokofiev is the founder of The NONCLASSICAL Club in London, England. It’s a place where musicians and composers explore music beyond the constraints of the term “classical”. Out of that club came the record label Nonclassical, and out f that label came this CD featuring Gabriel Prokofiev’s Piano Book No. 1. These pieces, beautifully played by pianist Genia, draw their inspiration from the “Piano Albums of the 19th and 20th centuries, when pianos, rather than televisions and computers, were the centre of the home.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Nonclassical nonclss006

Podcast: Misha Keylin plays Vieuxtemps

Naxos — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:00:19 +0000

Henry Vieuxtemps was one of the greatest violinist-composers of the 19th century, along with people like Paganini and Beriot. However, unlike many of his fellow violinists, Vieuxtemps wrote music that used the full romantic orchestral sound palette. In this podcast, violinist Misha Keylin talks about this music, it’s challenges, and why he hopes Vieuxtemps finds his way back onto the concert stage. On this CD, Misha Keylin is accompanied by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Andrew Mogrelia.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570974

Podcast: Takako Nishizaki talks about studying with Shinichi Suzuki

Naxos — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:00:45 +0000

Although millions and millions of music students know the name Shinichi Suzuki, few of them have ever had the chance to me, let alone study with him. In this podcast, violinist Takako Nishizaki talks about being one of Suzuki’s first students, and how those experiences inform her own ideas as a teacher today. Musical highlights in the podcast feature her playing the pieces she would have first studied with Maestro Suzuki. She is accompanied by pianist Terence Dennis, and the Strings of the National Youth Orchestra of New Zealand, conducted by Peter Walls.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572378

Podcast: The Elora Festival Singers sing Whitacre

Naxos — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:00:24 +0000

Eric Whitacre is now the unquestioned superstar of American choral composers. Whether he is setting the poetry of Octavio Paz, e.e. cummings, Rumi or the Bible, his marriage of poetry with beauty of sound creates a unique and enchanting sonic world. This sound world is beautifully captured on this CD by the Elora Festival Singers, pianist Leslie De’Ath, percussionist Carol Bauman, and conductor Noel Edison. In this podcast, Eric Whitacre talks about choosing poetry for music, his love of e.e. cummings, his Youtube choir, and his brand new music theatre piece “Paradise Lost”.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559677

Podcast: JoAnn Falletta and the music of Dohnanyi

Naxos — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:45 +0000

Ernő von Dohnányi was one of many European composers whose work was overtaken by 20th century history. Thanks to people like conductor JoAnn Falletta, pianist Eldar Nebolsin, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, new generations of listeners can now re-discover his music. This podcast features an interview with JoAnn Falletta in which she discusses the music of Dohnanyi, and the upcoming 75th anniversary of the Buffalo Philharmonic, an orchestra she has led for more than a decade.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572303

Podcast: One Morning, with Ronn McFarlane

Naxos — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:15 +0000

When lute player Ronn McFarlane released “Indigo Road” his first CD of all original compositions, it was a smash hit – and was nominated for a Grammy Award. His new CD, “One Morning”, continues this same journey, but he is now joined on his travels by his own folk/classical band Ayreheart. Ronn McFarlane – daring to go where no lute players have gone before!!

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Dorian Sono Luminus DSL-92111

Podcast: Rautavaara’s Before the Icons, A Tapestry of Life

Naxos — Tue, 25 May 2010 00:00:35 +0000

Einojuhani Rautavaara is one of Finland’s best composers, a musician whose work has transcended musical and national boundaries. This podcast looks at the world premiere recordings of two recent works by Rautavaara – Before the Icons, and A Tapestry of Life. This CD, on Finland’s Ondine label, features the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Leif Segerstam.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Ondine ODE1149-2

Podcast: Rodion Shchedrin’s Concertos for Orchestra

Naxos — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:00:41 +0000

Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin spent some of his childhood in the small town of Aleksin, south of Moscow, where his uncle was an Orthodox priest. There, with no radio, television or recorded music, he listened to the townspeople make music as part of their daily lives. Choirs singing in town, shepherds singing in the fields, and the townsfolk playing the accordion and balilika. That experience profoundly affected the way he has approached music as a composer, especially in his Concertos for Orchestra. This podcast, and this CD present the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kirill Karabits, in world premiere recordings of Kristallene Gusli, and his Concertos for Orchestra 4 and 5.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572405

Podcast: Sondra Radvanovsky sings Verdi

Naxos — Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:47 +0000

Sondra Radvanovsky is one of the greatest Verdi singers of our time, at home on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, and other of the world’s finest opera houses. The music of Giuseppe Verdi is particular dear to her – music that has also played a major role in her career and development as a singer. In this podcast she talks about that music, and about her brand new CD featuring her favourite arias from seven different Verdi operas.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Delos DE3404

Podcast: Vasily Petrenko talks to Edward Seckerson about his Shostakovich recording of Symphony No 8

Naxos — Thu, 06 May 2010 00:12:15 +0000

The charismatic St Petersburg-born Vasily Petrenko has really been turning things around at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra since he took over as Principal Conductor in 2005. With both standards and audiences on the up he has embarked upon his first major recording project – to record all 15 Shostakovich Symphonies for the Naxos label. The two previous releases have received tremendous notices and in this exclusive podcast he talks to Edward Seckerson about the project in general and the latest release – the war-torn 8th Symphony – in particular.

Album details…
Catalogue No. Naxos 8.572392

Podcast: Polly – an opera by Samuel Arnold

Naxos — Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:36 +0000

When Samuel Arnold wrote his opera Polly in 1777, he used John Gay‘s libretto to The Beggar’s Opera as a starting point. Unlike the earlier piece, which never reached the stage due to government censorship, Polly was a huge success and established Samuel Arnold as London’s leading theatre composer of the time. Still, it has taken Naxos, and the Aradia Ensemble under Kevin Mallon to make the first ever recording of this charming and delightful piece.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.660241

Podcast: Wolf Rounds – wind band music by Daugherty, Maslanka and Rouse

Naxos — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:15 +0000

Gary Green, Director of Bands at the University of Miami, talks about their new CD featuring new works by three of America’s finest contemporary composers: Michael Daugherty, David Maslanka, and Christopher Rouse. Joining Gary Green and the Frost Wind Ensemble on this CD are soloists Glenn Basham, violin and Tim Connor, trombone.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572439

Podcast: The Bach Cantata Pilgrimage

Naxos — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:48 +0000

On Christmas Day, 1999, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, together with the Monterverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, embarked on one of the largest performance/recording projects undertaken. The plan was to perform and record all 200+ cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach in one year, each on their proper day in the church calendar. This project gave some lucky audiences a chance to hear incredible live performances of these cantatas. It gave the rest of us incredible performances of every Bach cantata.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Soli Deo Gloria SDG165

Podcast: Pianist Philip Edward Fisher talks about recording Handel’s Great Suites for Keyboard

Naxos — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:00:18 +0000

Pianist Philip Edward Fisher talks about his new Naxos recording of the first four “Great Keyboard Suites” by George Frideric Handel. In this podcast, Fisher describes some of the challenges in preparing this music, about playing it on the piano rather than the harpsichord for which it was likely composed, and about why the music of J.S. Bach has become such a regular part of the piano repertoire, while Handel’s music is often forgetten.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572197

Podcast: Gil Shaham talks about his new CD of Mendelssohn and Haydn

Naxos — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:00:45 +0000

A feature interview with violinist Gil Shaham as he talks about his new recording of Joseph Haydn‘s Violin Concertos 1 and 2, and Felix Mendelssohn‘s famous Octet for strings. His fellow musicians on this CD are the Sejong Soloists, an ensemble with whom Shaham clearly loves to work.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Canary Classics CC08

Podcast: The Choral Music of Julian Wachner

Naxos — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:00:08 +0000

A feature interview with American choral composer Julian Wachner, to go with the release of the first Naxos CD of his choral music, part of the Naxos American Classics series. Besides his work as a composer, he is also Music Director of the Washington Chorus, and a Professor of Music at McGill University in Montreal. The featured artists on this CD, and in this podcast, are the Elora Festival Singers, organist Michael Bloss, conducted by Noel Edison.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559607

Podcast: The Piano Music of Paul Kletzki

Naxos — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:00:46 +0000

Polish-born Paul Kletzki started out as one of the most promising composers of the early 20th century – both Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwangler were big supporters, and ended up as one of its more important conductors. In between those two, he was displaced by three dictators: Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin and survived the Holocaust, but lost his family. This podcast looks at his Piano Concerto, and solo piano pieces, in performances with Joseph Banowetz and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Sanderling – music that provides an intriguing look at what he might have become, had he not stopped composing during the 1940′s.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572190

Podcast: Sonia Rubinsky and the Piano Music of Villa-Lobos

Naxos — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:00:55 +0000

Heitor Villa-Lobos was one of the most prolific composers in Brazilian history … in fact, one of the most prolific composers period. His music, with its influences of Johann Sebastian Bach, Brazilian folk music, and the urban music he heard in Brazil’s cities, came to influence an entire generation of pop musicians in Brazil. In this podcast, pianist Sonia Rubinsky talks about her project to record eight CDs of his piano music, including many pieces that have never before been recorded.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.508013

Podcast: Gerald Finley sings Great Opera Arias

Naxos — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:24 +0000

An interview with baritone Gerald Finley about his new Chandos CD titled Great Opera Arias. This CD includes arias from two roles he helped create as the first person to sing the lead roles: Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams‘ Dr. Atomic, and Harry in Mark Anthony Turnage‘s The Silver Tassie. Other composers featured on this disc include Tchaikowsky, Weber, Verdi, Bizet, Puccini, Donezetti, Wagner and Mozart. In this recording, Gerald Finley is accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Chandos CHAN 3167

Podcast: The Vienna Philharmonic plays Haydn

Naxos — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:00:11 +0000

The Vienna Philharmonic was founded in 1842, only 33 years after the death of Franz Joseph Haydn. Since that time, they have given more than 7,000 concerts, surely a record among orchestras. In this special box set on the Vienna Philharmonic’s own CD label, they present seven Haydn Symphonies, conducted by five of the world’s greatest conductors: Christoph von Dohnanyi, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Franz Welser-Most, Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Vienna Philharmonic WPH-L-H-2009

Podcast: An interview with pianist Jenny Lin

Naxos — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:00:14 +0000

When Jenny Lin launched her CD “Preludes to a Revolution”, the New York Times wrote “No one who has heard the latest recording by the pianist Jenny Lin – “Preludes to a Revolution,” a series of predominantly lyrical effusions from the pre-Soviet and early Soviet era, on Hänssler Classic – will need to be told that Ms. Lin has a gift for melodic flow…”. That, along with her formidable technique and dedication to contemporary music have made her one of the most interesting and compelling pianists of our time. In this feature interview, she talks about the joys of working with living composers.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Hanssler Classic CD98.229

Podcast: Magnus Lindberg’s Graffiti

Naxos — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:00:42 +0000

Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg is one of the most dynamic composers working today. As the music in this podcast shows, he is also a master of orchestral colour. This podcast looks at a CD of two recent large-scale works: Graffiti for orchestra and choir, and Seht die Sonne for orchestra. This CD, on Finland’s renowned Ondine label, features the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Helsinki Chamber Choir conducted by Sakari Oramo.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Ondine ODE1157-2

Podcast: Luminosity – an interview with James Whitbourn

Naxos — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:00:36 +0000

An interview with British composer James Whitbourn about a new Naxos CD of his choral music with Commotio choir, soloists Christopher Gillett, Levine Andrade, Steffan Jones, Andrew Ker, Henry Parkes and special narrator Desmond Tutu, all conducted by Matthew Berry. The texts used in Whitbourn’s music are as varied as the performers as he draws on The Bible, Issac of Nineveh, Julian of Norwich, Buddhist mystic Ryonen and Desmond Tutu.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572103

Podcast: Joseph Polisi talks about composer William Schuman

Naxos — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:00:35 +0000

American composer William Schuman, born 100 years ago, was one of the best-known composers of his day. He was also an arts administrator of great skill who was at various times President of The Julliard School and President of Lincoln Centre. In this podcast, Dr. Joseph Polisi, current President of Julliard and Schuman’s friend and biographer, talks about Schuman and his music. The music featured in this podcast comes from a new CD on the Naxos American Classics series featuring the Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz playing Schuman‘s Symphony No. 8, Night Music, and Schuman’s arrangement of Charles Ives‘ “Variations on America”.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559651

Podcast: Leonard Slatkin talks about Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2

Naxos — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:48 +0000

Maestro Leonard Slatkin talks about Sergei Rachmaninov‘s music, his Symphony No. 2 in E minor, and his new recording of this piece with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where he is now Music Director. In this podcast, Leonard Slatkin talks about what Rachmaninov does that allows this hour-long symphony hold together, and what challenges it presents to the performing orchestra.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572458

Podcast: Marin Alsop talks about Roy Harris Symphonies 5 and 6

Naxos — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:00:43 +0000

Roy Harris, along with colleagues such as Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions, were among the leading American symphonists in the first half of the 20th century. Collectively, they helped to create an “American” symphonic sound. In this podcast, conductor Marin Alsop talks about the music of Roy Harris, and his Symphonies 5 and 6 which are featured on this new recording with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559609

Podcast: Eternal Fire – the Choruses of J.S. Bach

Naxos — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:00:18 +0000

On Christmas Day 1999, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, together with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, embarked on one of the most remarkable musical projects ever undertaken. The began their “Bach Cantata Pilgrimage” in which they performed all 200 Bach Cantatas, each on the feast day for which they were composed, in one year. Out of that project came recordings of every cantata, and a new record label, SDG, to release them. This podcast looks at the project, and Eternal Fire, a collection of choruses from the cantata project.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Soli Deo Gloria SDG177

Podcast: Mahler Symphony No. 2

Naxos — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:00:45 +0000

Our first podcast featuring a release on CSO-Resound, the record label of the world-renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra. All CDs on this label come from live performances by the Chicago Symphony, and feature the orchestra with some of the world’s finest conductors, including Bernard Haitink, conductor of this performance.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: CSO-Resound 901916

Podcast: Avner Dorman Concertos

Naxos — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:00:55 +0000

American composer Avner Dorman, a protégé of John Corigliano and Zubin Mehta, is emerging as one of the leading composers of his generation. The diverse concertos presented here combine the excitement and spontaneity associated with jazz, baroque, rock and ethnic music. Dorman writes in the liner notes: ‘I have always loved baroque music…the clear rhythms, the strong reliance on the bass, and the extreme contrasts.’ This podcast and CD feature the Metropolis Ensemble and soloists Avi Avital, Mindy Kaufman, Avni Eliran, Lily Francis, Aya Hamada, Michal Korman, Eric Nowlin and Arnaud Sussmann, all conducted by Andrew Cyr.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559620

Podcast: Christmas 2009 – a special podcast

Naxos — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:00:38 +0000

Join Raymond in a special Christmas podcast as he features three of his favourite Christmas CDs – two new CDs, plus an old favourite. The new CDs featured are A Stephen Chatman Christmas, and Marc Hervieux’s “Le Premiere Noel” while the old favourite is The Mystery of Christmas with the Elora Festival Singers.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.554179

Podcast: Dear Mrs. Parks

Naxos — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:00:01 +0000

Composer Hannibal Lokumbe wrote his piece Dear Mrs. Parks as a series of imaginary letters to civil rights activist Rosa Parks – all set for orchestra, chorus and soloists. In this podcast interview, he talks about the piece, and his hopes for the message it carries to the world. The music in this podcast comes from the world premiere recording of Dear Mrs. Parks, taken from live performances in March 2009 featuring the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Rackham Symphony Choir, the Brazeal Dennard Chorale, plus soloists Janice Chandler-Eteme, Jevetta Steele, Kevin Deas and Taylor Gardner, all conducted by Thomas Wilkins.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559668

Podcast: Southern Harmony

Naxos — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:00:39 +0000

In 1835 WIlliam Walker published his songbook Southern Harmony. The title page describes it as a collection of “tunes, hymns, psalms, odes and anthems”. It sold an astonishing 600,000 copies before the US Civil War, and became the inspiration for Donald Grantham‘s band piece of the same name. Also included on this Naxos Wind Band Classics CD with The Ohio State University Wind Symphony, is music by Aaron Copland, Dmitry Kabalevsky, John Stevens and Morten Lauridsen. Conducted by Professor Russel Mikkelson and Richard Blatti.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572342

Podcast: In Terra Pax – A Christmas Anthology

Naxos — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:00:39 +0000

Listening to this CD of lush English Christmas carols, it’s hard to believe that in the mid-1600′s, Christmas Day had been outlawed by an act of Parliament, and Christmas carols were forbidden. This was during the time of Oliver Cromwell, when anything that remotely suggested enjoyment was frowned upon. It wasn’t until Victorian times that Christmas carols regained some popularity, and by the 20th century, England was producing some of the finest. This podcast, and this CD look at the English carol tradition, and music written by composers such as Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Rutter and John Gardner. Performers on this outstanding CD include City of London Choir, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Hilary Davan Wetton.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572102

Podcast: Robert Aitken plays Stamitz Flute Concertos

Naxos — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:00:41 +0000

In 1742, Johann Stamitz got the job offer he wanted – he was invited to become a member of the Mannheim Court Orchestra. A couple of years later, he became Concertmaster, and then Director of Instrumental Music. That meant he had to compose as well as play. Because his patron loved the flute, and he had a really good player in his orchestra, he wrote a number of flute concertos. Four of them are presented on this disc and podcast, with Canadian flutist Robert Aitken, and the St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra conducted by Donatas Katkus.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570150

Podcast: Vivaldi ! with Marie Nicole Lemieux

Naxos — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:00:56 +0000

Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux burst onto the international scene with her performances of Vivaldi operas. This CD is the perfect introduction to those operas, and her glorious voice. Accompanied by Ensemble Matheus conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Marie-Nicole presents some of her favourite arias from Orlando Furioso, Griselda and La fida ninta.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naive V5212

Vasily Petrenko talks to The Independent’s Edward Seckerson about the Shostakovich project at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Naxos — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:32:46 +0000

“The charismatic St. Petersburg-born Vasily Petrenko has really been turning things around at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra since he took over as Principal Conductor in 2005.

With both standards and audiences on the up he has embarked upon his first major recording project – to record all 15 Shostakovich Symphonies for the Naxos label.

Two releases (8.572082, 8.572167) are now available and in this exclusive podcast he talks to Edward Seckerson about the project in general and the symphonies in particular. The 11th “The Year 1905” makes extensive use of revolutionary songs and graphically portrays the bloody massacre of over 200 peaceful demonstrators outside the Winter Palace on the 9th January that year. This now notorious passage which pitches a wall of percussion (five players) against shrill demented unisons is one of the most powerful depictions of unprovoked violence in 20th century music.

The other release couples Shostakovich’s most performed symphony, the 5th, a work of profound ambivalences written when the composer was under intense scrutiny from the Soviet authorities, and the 9th, a deceptively jaunty neo-classical piece which both confused and infuriated those who had been led to expect an epic in memory of Lenin. Shostakovich did so love to confound expectations.” The Independent 23/11/2009

Podcast: Elgar’s Crown of India

Naxos — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:00:02 +0000

Sir Edward Elgar wrote his Crown of India for a 1912 musical event in London celebrating the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary as Emperor and Empress of India. Although such an event is an historical anachronism today, the music Sir Edward was not. The orchestral suite from this work is one of his most performed pieces. This podcast looks at a new recording of both versions – the full version with narration, and the orchestral suite – with the BBC Philharmonic, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, and singers Clare Shearer and Gerald Finley, all conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Chandos CHAN 10570

Podcast: Synergy – with the Columbus State University Wind Ensemble

Naxos — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:00:02 +0000

A spotlight look at the new Columbus State University Wind Ensemble‘s new CD – a CD that brings together an outstanding band, conductor Robert Rumbelow, and three great soloists: Clarinettists John Yeh and Teresa Reilly, and percussionist Molly Yeh. This podcast features musical excerpts by Michael Daugherty, Michael Burritt, David Gillingham, Jim David and Scott McAllister, plus extended interviews with both John Yeh and Robert Rumbelow.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572319

Podcast: Mark Adamo’s Late Victorians

Naxos — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:00:01 +0000

A podcast feature about Late Victorians, a new Naxos CD featuring the world premiere recordings of four works by American composer Mark Adamo, who is also the interview guest in this podcast. This CD features Alcott Music, a suite from his opera Little Women, Regina Coeli, Overture to Lysistrata, and Late Victorians. This final piece uses words by Richard Rodriguez and Emily Dickenson, and is dedicated to those who have died of, and those who have survived AIDS. Performers on this CD include Emily Pulley, Andrew Sullivan, Dotian Levalier, the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra and conductor Sylvia Alimena.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559258

Podcast: William Schuman – Prayer in a Time of War

Naxos — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:00:41 +0000

When he graduated from high school, William Schuman enrolled in New York University with every intention of doing a commerce degree. Then his sister took him to a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. That very night, he decided to become a composer. Schuman went on to become one of the most important American composers and composition teachers of the 20th century. He was president of Julliard School, President of Lincoln Centre in New York, and the composer of eight major symphonies. This podcast looks at a new recording of his Symphony No. 6, Prayer in a Time of War, and New England Tryptich, with the Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559625

Podcast: Bohuslav Martinu’s Piano Concertos

Naxos — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:00:47 +0000

Czech-born composer Bohuslav Martinu was born in a church tower in Policka, Bohemia in 1890. He became a student in the Prague Conservatory, and played with the Czech Philharmonic before moving to Paris to study composition. When World War Two broke out, he fled Europe and moved to the United States where he taught at the Mannes School of Music in New York. All the while, he composed incessantly – including the two piano concertos on this disc. Performers include pianist Robert Kolinsky, conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Sinfonieorchester Basel.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Ondine ODE 1158-2

Podcast: Le Voyage Dans La Lune

Naxos — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:10 +0000

Between 1902 and 1904, French film director Georges Melies made Le Voyage Dans La Lune, the world’s first science fiction film. In this CD + DVD project, composer/conductor Robert Ian Winstin has asked four different composers including himself, “Professor Louie Hurwitz, James Guymon and Don Myers to each write their own original soundtracks for this film. The result is four soundtracks that couldn’t be more different – and more effective.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: ERM Media Film ERM-5997

Podcast: To The Four Corners with Huang Ruo

Naxos — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:00:33 +0000

Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China the same year the Cultural Revolution ended. This allowed him to get a unique kind of musical education as “western” music was again allowed back into China. This experience, along with his subsequent study in the United States, has helped him develop a unique compositional voice. In this podcast, he talks about his musical youth, and about his new CD with Future in REverse (FIRE) ensemble.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559653

Podcast: Don Giovanni … for string quartet

Naxos — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:00:44 +0000

Since the first performance of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, there has been a steady stream of arrangements of the piece. By the end of the 19th century, there were already more than 600 published arrangements. Some were note very good, but others, such as the music featured in this podcast, were excellent. On this CD, Quatour Franz Joseph performs an arrangement of Don Giovanni for string quartet, made sometime around 1800.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: ATMA ACD22559

Podcast: Carlo Gesualdo, composer, murderer

Naxos — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:23 +0000

Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, was one of the more colorful characters among Italian Renaissance composers. He wrote unusual and highly emotional music, and he was a murderer. This podcast looks at both his personal life (sometimes gruesome) as well as his music. Music by Gesualdo’s fellow composers Pomponio Nenna and Luzzasco Luzzaschi is also included. The featured artists in this podcast, and on the CD are Concerto Italiano conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naive OP30486

Podcast: Morten Lauridsen’s Choral Music

Naxos — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:00:47 +0000

Morten Lauridsen is America’s pre-eminent composer of choral music. His music, with long, arching, expressive lines is enjoyed by performers and audiences alike. In the CD featured in this podcast, the Elora Festival Singers under conductor Noel Edison present five of his pieces – O nata lux and O Magnum Mysterium, two of his most famous sacred works, plus collections of songs based on Italian Renaissance poetry, as well as poems by Robert Graves and Rainer Marie Rilke.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559304

Podcast: Eliesha Nelson plays Quincy Porter

Naxos — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:00:32 +0000

Although Quincy Porter is better known as a teacher, he was also a fine composer, violist and conductor. A rediscovery of his music is overdue, and what better place to start than with this CD of his complete viola music, with Eliesha Nelson, recording artist and member of the Cleveland Orchestra. This CD also features John McLaughlin Williams as conductor, pianist and violinist, harpist Douglas Rioth, and the Northwest Sinfonia.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Dorian Sono Luminus DSL-90911

Podcast: The Masses of Joseph Haydn

Naxos — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:44 +0000

Over the course of his 73 years, Franz Joseph Haydn wrote a huge amount of music, including more than a dozen Masses. This podcast looks at those masses, and a new recording by Trinity Church Choir, REBEL Baroque Orchestra, J.Owen Burdick and Jane Glover.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.508009

Podcast: David Aaron Carpenter plays Elgar and Schnittke

Naxos — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:41 +0000

With his CD of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Alfred Schnittke‘s Viola Concerto, New York-based violist David Aaron Carpenter puts himself onstage as one of the leading violists of the new generation. His performance of Edward Elgar‘s Cello Concerto also makes a compelling case for performing the piece more often on viola. In this CD, Carpenter is accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach.

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Catalogue No.: Ondine ODE 1153-2

Podcast: Orjan Sandred’s Cracks and Corrosion

Naxos — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:00:02 +0000

Orjan Sandred is a Swedish electro-acoustic composer who spends his summers in Europe, and his winters teaching at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. In this podcast, he describes his approach to sound and composition as he creates music that combines live performers with computer generated or altered sounds.

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Catalogue No.: Navona NV5814

Podcast: Johan Svendsen’s Norwegian Rhapsodies

Naxos — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:01:47 +0000

Johan Svendsen was the one of the leading figures in Norwegian music during the romantic era, both as a composer and a conductor. This podcast introduces you to his Norwegian Rhapsodies, as well as the music he wrote for Romeo and Juliet, and his piece Zorahayda, based on the story Rose of Alhambra by the American author Washington Irving (who also wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow). The performers are the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Bjarte Engeset.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570322

Podcast: Michael Daugherty’s Metropolis Symphony

Naxos — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:00:14 +0000

The inspiration for Michael Daugherty‘s Metropolis Symphony can be traced all the way back to his youth, as he watched on television as the caped superhero rescued humanity – as especially Lois Lane – from all kinds of deadly situations. Daugherty’s ability to allow the visual world to inspire the musical is evident in many of his works such as Deux Ex Machina, included on this CD, and Fire and Blood that was inspired by murals by Diego Rivera. The performers on this present CD include the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, pianist Terrence Wilson, and conductor Giancarlo Guerrero.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos American Classics 8.559635

Podcast: Rautavaara’s 12 Concertos

Naxos — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:52 +0000

Einojuhani Rautavaara is Finland’s best known composer, especially internationally. Rautavaara’s music has been described as a mixture of modernism and mystic romanticism – an attempt to define a compositional style that is unique, personal, and very hard to define. Among his finest works are 12 concertos, composed over the past four decades, and collected together in this 4-CD box on the Ondine label. Performers include violinist Elmar Oliveira, cellist Marko Ylonen, harpist Marielle Nordmann, organ player Kari Jussila, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and pianists Ralf Gothoni and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

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Catalogue No.: Ondine ODE1156-2Q

Podcast: Fanfares and Overtures with Rutgers Wind Ensemble

Naxos — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:01 +0000

Fanfares and Overtures, the first CD by the esteemed Rutgers Wind Ensemble on Naxos Wind Band Classics, presents a dizzying range of music that include either fanfares or overtures. The CD includes music by Herbert Owen Reed, Vaclav Nelhybel, WIlliam Schuman and Karel Husa whose “Music for Prague” may be one of the finest pieces of musical protest music ever written.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572230

Podcast: Richard Strauss’ Orchestral Suites

Naxos — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:00:27 +0000

Richard Strauss wrote some of the finest operas of the 20th century. Pieces like Elektra, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier helped push the limits of the operatic artform, and also established Strauss as one of the truly great composers for the media. In a few cases, he created orchestral suites from these stage works, and it’s this music that is featured in this podcast, including his suites for Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau Ohne Shatten and Josephs-Legende. JoAnn Falletta conducts the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in in this new Naxos CD.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572041

Podcast: Heinrich Biber’s Missa Salisburgensis

Naxos — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:00:08 +0000

Missa Salisburgensis is a mass Heinrich Ignaz von Biber wrote for 53 individual voices and instruments, composed to celebrate the 11-hundreth anniversary of the founding of the archdiocese of Salzburg. I was composed to be performed in the Salzburg Cathedral – 444 feet long, with a ceiling more than 100 feet high. For this piece, Biber placed the audience in the middle, with the musicians divided into 8 groups all around them. You might call it the original Surround Sound.

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Catalogue No.: NCA 60192

Podcast: Romantic Violin Concertos

Naxos — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:00:43 +0000

Danish music may be one of the finest under-discovered realms in all classical music. This is particularly true of music from the Romantic era, as this podcast and CD show. These violin concertos by Niels Gade, Peter Erasmus Lange-Muller and Rued Langgaard – hardly household names – deserve to be heard more widely on CD, and much more often in concert. These performances were recorded in 2009 with violin soloist Christina Astrand and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Storgards.

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Catalogue No.: Dacapo 6.220562

Podcast: The World’s Most Beautiful Horn Concertos

Naxos — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:00:01 +0000

Former horn player Raymond Bisha takes you on a personal tour of this new CD set from Profil celebrating the French Horn, and some of it’s finest players including Wilhelm Bruns, Hermann Baumann, Peter Damm and the legendary Erich Penzel play music by Handel, Telemann, Mozart, Schumann and Strauss.

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Catalogue No.: Profil PH08075

Podcast: Open Crossings, the Music of Andy Teirstein

Naxos — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:00:54 +0000

Andy Teirstein is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based in New York. His strong roots in classical music, folk music and dance have helped him create a musical language that crosses all boundaries. Most of the pieces on this CD are chamber pieces, ranging from “3 Movements for String Quartet and Folk Musician” to the chamber melodrama “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”. In this interview, Teirstein talks about composing music for theater, working in a Mexican circus, the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, and his dream of writing a companion piece to “What is Left of Us”.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559617

Podcast: Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Naxos — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:00:13 +0000

Leonard Bernstein wrote his Mass at the request of Jacqueline Onassis, for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington. It is a huge work, almost an hour and three-quarters long, that with bewildering range of musical styles. In this recording, Bernstein’s protege Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, shows convincingly that she may be the best interpreter of his music alive today. This recording also features Jubilant Sykes, the Morgan State University Choir and the Peabody Children’s Chorus.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559622-23

Podcast: Michael Daugherty’s Fire and Blood

Naxos — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:00:21 +0000

Composer Michael Daugherty was the composer-in-residence for four years at the Detroit Symphony, and composed all of the music on this CD for that orchestra. The title work was inspired by the giant murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts by Diego Rivera. Rivera was commissioned by Edsel Ford to create a mural celelbrating the Detroit automobile industry. This CD features the Detoit Symphony, conducted by Neeme Jarvi, with soloists Ida Kavafian on violin, and Brian Jones on Timpani.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559372

Podcast: Music for Kings and Queens – the Choral Music of Hubert Parry

Naxos — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:00:48 +0000

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry had his first serious music training as a student at Eton College, that icon of British education. He went on to be Principal of the Royal College of Music, a Professor at Oxford, wrote music for Royal Coronations, and was knighted for his efforts. This podcast looks at some of his finest choral compositions – music fit for a king in performances by the Manchester Cathedral Choir.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572104

Podcast: Trendsetters – Music for Wind Band by Hindemith, Holst, Grainger and Schwanter

Naxos — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:00:30 +0000

Trendsetters may be the perfect introduction to 20th-century wind band music. It introduces four different composers, each with their own unique style. Percy Grainger‘s Lincolnshire Posy, Gustav Holst‘s First Suite in E flat for Military Band, Paul Hindemith‘s Symphony in B flat, and Joseph Schwantner‘s … and the mountains rising nowhere each offer a unique take on what the wind band can be.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572242

Podcast: Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony

Naxos — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:30:01 +0000

Richard Strauss wrote his Alpine Symphony in 1915, inspired by the death of his friend Gustav Mahler. This is a huge work, requiring an orchestra of 125 people, and is monumentally difficult as well. This podcast looks at a new recording of the piece with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marek Janowski.

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Catalogue No.: Pentatone PTC5186339

Podcast: An American Operatic Masterpiece – Deems Taylor’s Peter Ibbetson

Naxos — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:00:48 +0000

Deems Taylor was a music critic, composer, broadcaster, and an important person in the development of classical music in the first half of the 20th century. This podcast looks at his opera Peter Ibbetson, composed for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. This performance features the Seattle Symphony and Chorus, conducted by Gerard Schwarz, plus soloists Charles Robert Austin, Anthony Dean Griffey, Lauren Flanigan, Richard Zeller, and Lori Summers.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.669016-17

Podcast: KZ Musik – Encyclopedia of Music Composed in Concentration Camps

Naxos — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:00:34 +0000

An introduction to KZ Musik: Encyclopedia of Music Composed in Concentration Camps 1933-1945. When completed, this 24 CD project will be the most comprehensive collection ever made of music composed in World War II concentration camps. Music by Gideon Klein, Robert Dauber, Rudolf Karel, Erwin Schulhoff, Ilse Weber, Viktor Ullmann, Hugo Lowenthal, David Grunfeld.

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Catalogue No.: KZ Musik 231694, KZ Musik 231785-89

Podcast: Voice from Argentina: Alberto Ginastera and his String Quartets

Naxos — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:00:35 +0000

A podcast introduction to the string quartets of Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera, and a new recording with the Enso Quartet and soprano Lucy Shelton.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570780

Podcast: Heartbeat of Brazil – The String Quartets of Villa Lobos

Naxos — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:00:58 +0000

Heitor Villa-Lobos was one of the most prolific composers of all time. Along the way he wrote 17 string quartets. This podcast is an introduction to these quartets, and to a Dorian box set featuring the complete string quartets with Cuarteto Latinoamericano.

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Catalogue No.: Dorian Sono Luminus DSL-90904

Podcast: Wild Grass – the Music of Zhou Long and Chen Yi

Naxos — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:00:59 +0000

Zhou Long and Chen Yi studied together at the Beijing Conservatory of Music, and at Columbia University in New York. They are now both on the composition faculty at University of Missouri, Kansas City. This podcast looks at a new CD of their chamber music with the Beijing New Music Ensemble

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570604

Podcast: Ge Gan-ru’s String Quartets – Fu, Angel Suite & Fall of Baghdad

Naxos — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:00:50 +0000

Ge Gan-ru was the first avant garde composer in China, and now lives in the United States. In this podcast, he discusses his journey – from China to America, and from traditional Chinese music to being at the forefront of modern music while talking about the new recording of his String Quartets with ModernWorks.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570603