Updates from the world's leading classical music label
Raymond Bisha presents a pair of vividly contrasting ballet scores by Aaron Copland, superbly performed by Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Grohg immediately suggested itself as the basis for a ballet after Copland attended a screening of Nosferatu, the popular German silent horror film, in 1922; the story-line of a vampire magician able Read More …
With 22 March marking World Water Day, today’s blog surveys H2O’s musical portraits, starting in a vast expanse and proceeding to a vapid ending. The world’s five oceans are daunting to contemplate – their strength, enormity, depth. I was only a youngster when Sir Francis Chichester became the first person to single-handedly sail around the Read More …
This podcast from the Naxos Sounds Interesting series documents the musical settings of works by Rudyard Kipling, the English journalist, poet and novelist. The presenter is Richard Kennedy.
The release this month of Delitiae Musicae’s final volume in their Monteverdi Madrigals series affords the opportunity to do a brief survey of each of the nine books of the composer’s madrigals that were published. Each volume in Delitiae Musicae’s edition is accompanied by authoritative notes by their conductor Marco Longhini, from which the following Read More …
Raymond Bisha introduces the fifth and final volume in our series of recordings of guitar music by Agustín Barrios, the virtuoso Paraguayan guitarist and composer who was one of the first guitarists to understand the potential of making recordings. Sometimes referred to as ‘the Paganini of the guitar from the jungles of Paraguay’, his music Read More …
Our January 25 blog featured a brief mix of the history and repertoire of the organ. It highlighted the loud, grandiose and often clichéd sound of which the instrument is capable, one which has served horror film scores and The Phantom of the Opera well. The blog’s reference to early organs in China might also Read More …
Raymond Bisha introduces a recording of orchestral works by Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920), a herald of Brazilian musical nationalism. It’s the first release in a significant new Naxos series titled The Music of Brazil. This is a monumental, 5-year undertaking in collaboration with Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to produce around 30 releases of some 100 Read More …
Born to actor-singer parents, it’s little wonder that Albert Lortzing (1801-1851) devoted his life and his musical talents to the world of opera. Although little known outside his native Germany, this actor-singer-librettist-conductor-composer’s operas were amongst the most popular productions in German theatres for more than a century, second only to Mozart and Verdi. Raymond Bisha Read More …
Conductor JoAnn Falletta talks with radio host Peter Hall about her recording of Respighi’s Roman Trilogy, her 24th release for Naxos with the Buffalo Philharmonic. Respighi’s tone poems employ a large symphony orchestra and use a myriad of effects to take the listener through time, space and musical styles. The resultant portraits of Roman festivals, Read More …
Organ recitals aren’t the most user-friendly events for getting familiar with repertoire. The instrument is rooted to where it was born, usually a church, where the performer is rarely in the sight-line and the seating is on the Spartan side. So, I thought a blog on introducing organ music to newcomers to the instrument might Read More …