Updates from the world's leading classical music label
This podcast features Marin Alsop in conversation with Raymond Bisha following the release of her first album for Naxos as chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. She assumed the post in 2019 and the programme reflects that of her first public appearance in the role. Marin’s advocacy of Hindemith’s music is rooted Read More …
2021 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Zemlinsky, the Austrian composer, conductor and teacher. This blog presents an introduction to his life and music. Born in Vienna on 14 October 1871, Zemlinsky studied at the Vienna Conservatory and went on to establish a growing importance on the Viennese musical scene by the Read More …
This podcast from the Naxos Sounds Interesting series introduces a selection of classical music items associated with natural disasters, from Biblical times to modern eras.
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 …
I recently registered with my local library and duly received a plastic card that gives me borrowing rights. Covering the front of the card is a quotation: “The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of a library.” Albert Einstein I wondered how many ‘books/livres/Bücher’ I could locate in my own Read More …
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 …
Amid the busy world news scene last month, the announcement of the passing of the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis on 2 September at the age of 96 escaped my attention. This blog offers a short introduction to his widely admired music. The political turmoil that frequently stamped the other side of his coin is easy Read More …
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 …
I’ve always found it intriguing how a quality composition is seemingly indestructible when it’s pressed into new clothes by skilled arrangers. (Whingers, by the way, is simply an anagram of Gershwin to reflect that notion). My first taste of the industry as a youngster was on hearing the Swingle Singers elevate J. S. Bach’s instrumental Read More …
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 …