Updates from the world's leading classical music label
April Fool’s Day occurs each year on 1 April and although the day has been marked for many centuries in different cultures, its exact origin is difficult to pin down. One speculation links it to the move by France in 1582 to move from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, effectively moving the start of Read More …
Beethoven’s concertos enjoy the spotlight in this podcast from Raymond Bisha. It serves as a companion resource to the latest digital album in our series marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The technical and musical demands Beethoven makes of his concerto soloists shine centre-stage in this compilation of wonderful performances of movements from Read More …
March 21 marks the European Day of Early Music. By way of a slightly contorted response to the occasion, I thought we might take a look at William Shakespeare’s influence on composers, not through the contemporary contributions they made to performances of his plays (he lived from 1564 to 1616), but by taking stock of Read More …
Raymond Bisha introduces Richard Danielpour’s oratorio The Passion of Yeshua, a 105-minute work for large chorus, six soloists and orchestra that takes the listener back to Jesus’ final day on earth, removing as much as possible the accretions of history since that moment in an attempt to provide a fuller understanding of the connection of Read More …
This podcast from the Naxos Sounds Interesting series spotlights the contributions of seven composers who made significant, but neglected contributions to the heritage of American symphonic music. The presenter is Richard Kennedy.
You have to pity those composers who got air-brushed out of the limelight during their time for no other reason than they were contemporaries of the acknowledged masters, and so had to live under the long shadows of composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and so on. Or, at least, it seems to us that Read More …
The guest host of this podcast is Ashley Jackson. She is an accomplished musician, who has studied the music of both Margaret Bonds and Florence Price, who composed and worked during the civil rights movement in the United States. In this podcast, Dr Jackson gives us both an historical and a personal perspective on how Read More …
Raymond Bisha presents an overview of Beethoven’s nine symphonies as a companion resource to the first of Naxos’ monthly digital albums presenting the music of Beethoven in this 250th anniversary year of his birth. January’s compilation album (9.30209) spotlights the symphonic journey and stylistic progression from Beethoven’s Second Symphony to his Ninth Symphony, ‘Choral’. The Read More …
Naxos has travelled far since its founding in 1987 as a budget label with a compelling business model, a chairman of great foresight and a DNA oozing innovation. It has developed into a web of avenues that link art music with music lovers. The Naxos label is now just one of the constituents of the Read More …
I never tire of listening to the voice of Peggy Lee (1920-2002), the American jazz and popular music singer who was also a songwriter, composer and actress. And with an active career that spanned some six decades, it seems I’m not the only one in her fan club. Her unique vocal timbre was apposite to Read More …