Backtrack of the week. Shostakovich.

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 (C687061A) is from a recording of Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto, a work completed in 1948 but premiered only in 1955, a victim Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Beethoven.

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 Dynamic label (CDS484) presents the finale from Beethoven’s String Quintet, Op. 4, published in 1796. It’s actually an arrangement for strings of an earlier Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Robert Schumann.

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 Oehms Classics label (OC571) is Robert Schumann’s dramatic, declamatory setting of a poem by Heinrich Heine, Belsazar (Belshazzar). The song relates the biblical story Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Jennifer Higdon.

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 (8.559298) is a performance of Jennifer Higdon’s Piano Trio, specifically the second of its two movements, Fiery Red. The American composer herself Read More …

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 …