Podcast: Paired to perfection. Tianwa Yang plays Prokofiev’s violin concertos.

Violinist Tianwa Yang marks her fifteenth year as one of Naxos’ leading artists with a new album featuring Prokofiev’s two violin concertos. The works’ stylistic contrasts reflect the fact that they were written some twenty years apart, but they receive the same scrupulous attention to technical and musical details that hallmark every one of Tianwa’s Read More …

Podcast: A centenary special – Sir Malcolm Arnold’s Complete Symphonies and Dances

An introduction to the Symphonies and Dances of composer Malcolm Arnold featuring conductor Andrew Penny who recorded all these works for Naxos.  Arnold’s orchestral works are a study in contrasts, from his optimistic and tuneful dance suites to his deeply personal symphonies. Join Raymond Bisha and Andrew Penny in this podcast as they chat about Read More …

Podcast: Mapping a musical monument. Giltburg’s Beethoven 32.

Raymond Bisha presents an overview of Boris Giltburg’s project to learn and record all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, which are now released in a 9-CD box set edition following their inception as critically acclaimed digital releases. The recordings reflect only one facet of Giltburg’s gem of an undertaking, in that performances were also filmed Read More …

Podcast: Versatilité sans frontières. Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint–Georges (1745–1799).

Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was a brilliant swordsman, athlete, violin virtuoso and gifted composer, with a claim to being the most talented figure in an age of remarkable individuals. He was an early and important exponent of the hybrid symphonie concertante, a genre that draws on both the symphony and concerto traditions. In this Read More …

Podcast: The string quartets of Jurgis Karnavičius (1884–1941).

Raymond Bisha introduces the second volume of string quartets by the Lithuanian composer Jurgis Karnavičius (1884–1941), recorded by the Vilnius String Quartet on the Ondine label. Their first volume comprised the composer’s romantic, folk-music inspired first two quartets. Volume 2 presents the Quartets Nos. 3 and 4, which are more expressive and modern in style. Read More …

Podcast: Jazz idioms, classical structures. Symphonic works by Nikolai Kapustin (1937–2020).

Significantly influenced by his experience of playing in some of the earliest Soviet jazz bands, Nikolai Kapustin trained as a pianist at the Moscow Conservatory but subsequently devoted himself to composition. His output includes many works for piano, two of which are featured on this new album — the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Concerto Read More …

Podcast: Music of Brazil. The Villa-Lobos violin sonatas.

Raymond Bisha prefaces his latest podcast with this introduction: “Heitor Villa-Lobos, the prolific Brazilian composer of some 2,000 works, conductor, cellist, guitarist and music educationalist, wrote his three violin sonatas between 1912 and 1920. When he wrote the first sonata, he was still a struggling young composer trying to make a name for himself, while Read More …

Podcast: Camille Saint-Saëns. A symphonic collection.

French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) is remembered as someone who could spin melodies as easily as he breathed. Naxos is marking the centenary of his death with a 3-CD box set that comprises all his symphonies and a sequence of atmospheric and dramatic symphonic poems, including Phaéton and the ever-popular Danse macabre. Raymond Bisha presents Read More …