Leonard Slatkin Archives - The Naxos Blog

Podcast: Ravel’s Antar. A collaborative creation.

Naxos — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 08:00:20 +0000

Antar was the subtitle of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Second Symphony (1867–68), so when Ravel was asked in 1910 to write incidental music for a play about the 6th-century Arabic warrior-poet, he turned to the Russian maestro’s piece for inspiration. Ravel’s incidental music, however, needed a narrative cloak to make it suitable for the concert platform. This was duly supplied in 2014 by the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf. Raymond Bisha guides us through this historic development of the tale of Antar and his beloved Abla, the Romeo and Juliet of the Arab world.

View album details of Ravel’s Orchestral Works Volume 5 at Naxos.com
Catalogue No.: 8.573448

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Podcast: Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. Pastoral perfection.

Naxos — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 08:00:27 +0000

Shabbily treated at its première by Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned the work for his dance company Ballets Russes, Daphnis et Chloé went on to be hailed by ensuing generations as Ravel’s masterpiece; by Ravel himself as “a vast musical fresco”; and by general opinion as the epitome of impressionism in music. Raymond Bisha delves into this peaceful musical story of pastoral simplicity, beautifully interpreted in Ravel’s passionate music, lush harmonies and subtle orchestration.

View album details of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé at naxos.com
Catalogue No.: 8.573545

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Podcast: Aaron Copland. Martha Graham. Ruth Page. A balletic major triad.

Naxos — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 08:00:27 +0000

Raymond Bisha presents two ballet scores by Aaron Copland: one woefully little known; one a beloved staple of dance companies. The jazz-influenced Hear Ye! Hear Ye! (1934) narrates the scenario of a nightclub murder and the ensuing trial in a Chicago courtroom. Highlighting life at the violent edge of American society, the work’s original choreography was by Ruth Page, who went on to become the Grande Dame of American ballet. In complete contrast, Appalachian Spring (1944) is Copland’s most internationally celebrated work. Inspired by a story created by the legendary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, the score draws on a wealth of American folk music for its material.

View album details of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Hear Ye! Hear Ye! at naxos.com
Catalogue No.: 8.559806

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Podcast: Ravel’s treasured time piece – L’heure espagnole

Naxos — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 08:00:57 +0000

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.

View album details of Maurice Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole / Don Quichotte à Dulcinée at naxos.com
Catalogue No.: 8.660337

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Podcast: A fascination with sound – Ravel’s spellbinding works for the stage.

Naxos — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 08:00:09 +0000

Fantasy, fairy tales and Maurice Ravel’s flair for orchestral colour are all to the fore in this new release of two examples of the composer’s music for the stage—the scores for his opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges and his ballet Ma mère l’Oye. This highly imaginative music, projected through a childlike lens, is instantly attractive to both the young and the young-at-heart. Simultaneously simple and complex, entrancing and seductive, music doesn’t come more magical than this.

View album details of Maurice Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortileges / Ma Mere l’Oye at naxos.com
Catalogue No.: 8.660336

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Podcast: Saint-Saëns and the King of Instruments

Naxos — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 08:00:51 +0000

This month’s new Naxos High Definition Audio Disc features the recently-restored Cavaillé-Coll organ which is now housed in the Lyon Auditorium. It’s played here by Vincent Warnier in an all-Saint-Saëns programme. Dating back to 1878, this huge instrument was relocated, re-built and then lovingly restored to its original glory in 2013. Saint-Saëns enjoyed a long and loyal relationship with the Cavaillé-Coll firm and its organs. An organist himself, he wrote skilfully for the instrument, as witnessed here in the three featured works—both for solo organ and with orchestra. In this podcast Rick Phillips takes us through a virtuosic transcription of the Danse Macabre, Cyprès et Lauriers (Cypresses and Laurels) and the great Symphony No. 3, known as the “Organ Symphony.” The Orchestre National de Lyon is conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

View album details of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 ‘Organ’ / Danse Macabre / Cyprès et Lauriers at naxos.com
Catalogue No.: Naxos Blu-ray Audio NBD0045

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I do. She does, too.

Naxos — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 08:00:16 +0000

While there’s no magic formula for clinching success when two people tie the knot, the old adage of ‘opposites attract’ has proven a winner for many a couple, allowing them to mix and enrich contrasting personas. But, for many musicians, both partners being in the same game has also proved a winning recipe. There have been exceptions, of course. Gustav and Alma Mahler reached an improbable compromise after they had married: he insisted that she give up composing which, very surprisingly, she did willingly enough through her sense of devotion. Fortunately, we can still get a glimpse of what might have flowed from her pen by enjoying the fourteen songs of hers that were eventually published between 1910 and 1924, with two more published posthumously. But her reputation as a complex femme fatale (she married twice more after Mahler died and had numerous affairs throughout her life) outdid her legacy as a composer, inspiring musical satirist Tom Lehrer to write the following in his song Alma:

The loveliest girl in Vienna
Was Alma, the smartest as well.
Once you picked her up on your antenna
You’d never be free of her spell.
Her lovers were many and varied
From the day she began her beguine.
There were three famous ones whom she married
And God knows how many between.

The evidence of husbands and wives sharing musical careers is sometimes disguised by the wives using professional, ratherthan married names. The Australian coloratura soprano Joan Sutherland, for example, was married to the conductor Richard Bonynge. While he wagged the stick when she was on stage, one wonders if she set the score straight when he was back at home. For many years, the oboist Evelyn Rothwell performed under her maiden name; and she kept her appearances with Britain’s Hallé Orchestra in Manchester towards the end of the Second World War at a minimum, lest other members of the orchestra perceived an unfounded favouritism because she was the wife of the conductor, John Barbirolli. Following Sir John’s death in 1970, she became affectionately known in some quarters simply as Lady B.

Similarly, Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená currently sees no need to trade off either the surname or ennoblement of her husband Sir Simon Rattle; the fact that they both perform and record together, however, confirms their being on the same wavelength. On the other hand, Sir James Galway’s wife regularly appears alongside her husband as Lady Jeanne Galway in their flute duo appearances.

Clara and Robert Schumann were both pianists and composers; Clara devoted herself toperformances of her husband’s works, particularly after his death in 1856. She also promoted the music of Johannes Brahms, who had become a very close family friend; the last work she performed in public before her death in 1896 was by Brahms. A film about this triangular relationship, made in 1947, saw Kathryn Hepburn playing the role of Clara. Unfortunately, Song of Love was unable to emulate the success of its three historical characters.

Dave Barbour was playing guitar in Benny Goodman’s ensemble when he met the lead singer Peggy Lee. They married in 1943 and, during their nine years together, co-produced some of Lee’s all-time hits, including Manana (Tomorrow is Soon Enough for Me) and It’s a Good Day (8.120642). After they separated, Lee went on to out-pip Alma Mahler by marrying a total of four times.

Two American songwriters who married in 1958, and whose pens and affections for each other stillhaven’t dried up, are Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Between them, they have notched up some remarkable successes, including The Way We Were with music by Marvin Halmisch (8.990029) and several songs set to music by Michel Legrand, among them What Are you Doing for the Rest of Your Life? and The Windmills of Your Mind.

Back in the classical music world, Canadian cellist Amanda Forsyth (8.559235) appears regularly with her conductor/performer husband Pinchas Zukerman, while Naxos artist Leonard Slatkin married the composer Cindy McTee in 2011, when she retired from the position of Regents Professor Emerita at the University of North Texas. They can be heard making beautiful music together in Slatkin’s recording of a programme of his wife’s music (8.559765) performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

And we cannot end this thread without mentioning Klaus Heymann, the founder and chairman of Naxos who was acknowledged in the 2013 Gramophone Hall of Fame for his influence and inspiration in the classical music industry, demonstrated in part by his having achieved sales of more than 115 million CDs. A number of these have highlighted the artistry of his wife, Takako Nishizaki, the distinguished Japanese violinist. Prominent among them are her recordings of The Butterfly Lovers’ Concerto, that aptly embodies a famously enduring love duet, of which more than 3 million copies have been sold in the People’s Republic of China and throughout South-East Asia.

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