Backtrack of the week. Arriaga.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Naxos label (8.557628) is a string quartet by Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, a precociously talented composer as well as an excellent violinist, who was Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Sibelius.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Ondine label (ODE1040-2) spotlights Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony. The composer made the following diary entry in November 1910, with the work still in progress: “A Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Gubaidulina.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Capriccio label (C67139) is the Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings that Sofia Gubaidulina composed in 1975 for Valeri Popov (b. 1937), the foremost Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Molter.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Ondine catalogue (ODE1056-2) features music by the little-known late-Baroque German composer Johann Melchior Molter. Of his complete output (which included some 170 symphonies and Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Ginastera.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Orfeo label (C181051A) presents music by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, who died in 1983. During the final decade of his life, Ginastera returned to Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Ibert.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Capriccio label (C71028) is from a recording of the Flute Concerto by French composer Jacques Ibert (1890–1962). Composed in 1934, the work has often Read More …