Updates from the world's leading classical music label
2015 marks milestone anniversaries for a number of significant classical composers, including Sibelius, Bartók, Glazunov, Franck and Arvo Pärt. Today, however, we consider a trio of other composers who were born on today’s date: 25 September. If you’re an organist, the name of the first composer will be well-known to you, even if only by Read More …
Two disparate experiences in sound occupy this month’s new CD of works by American composer Christopher Rouse. From the schizophrenic to the sublime, ‘Seeing’ and ‘Kabir Padavali’ are scored respectively for piano soloist and soprano soloist, plus orchestra. Ranging from notions of insanity to the exquisite beauty of 15th-century Indian poetry, Rouse explores the striking Read More …
Our 17 July blog made connections between some of the composers featured in the first four weeks of this year’s BBC Promenade Concerts. Almost two months on, and the world’s largest music festival is only now drawing to a close. The celebrated Last Night of the Proms will be held tomorrow, Saturday 12 August, with Read More …
Raymond Bisha delves into the stunning new Naxos recording of three choral works by Leonard Bernstein. The performances are conducted by Marin Alsop, a protégé of the composer and one of today’s leading interpreters of his work. A fervent spirituality permeates The Lark, the Missa Brevis (the last choral work to be completed by Bernstein) Read More …
Anyone who was born in a church tower, squandered opportunities for music education as a naughty teenager, lived through two world wars, rose to be one of his country’s greatest composers, and left footprints either side of the Atlantic gets my attention. I was reminded that today marks the death, on 28 August 1959, of Read More …
Dramatic tension is never far from the surface in Gordon Chin’s music, exemplified by this new recording of two of his formidable orchestral works. Literary inspiration for the Cello Concerto No. 1 came from the pens of Shakespeare, Pascal and Samuel Johnson, while the disturbed history of Chin’s native Taiwan formed the bedrock of his Third Symphony. Read More …
The year under the spotlight is 1888. The date, the same as the publication of this blog: 14 August. The featured inventor is Thomas Edison, to whom companies like Naxos owe their very existence. The new technology: the phonograph. Not brand spanking new, though. Edison had got his ground-breaking invention out of the blocks eleven Read More …
Raymond Bisha dips into the latest Naxos recording of works by Jean Sibelius that have been obscured by the popularity of his symphonies and the violin concerto, including many pieces he wrote to complement stage works. Although these might be termed incidental and occasional, they belie such labels by constituting an extraordinary treasure house of Read More …
As July turns to August many of us will be enjoying the sunshine and thinking of vacations past and present. For music lovers, few melodies conjure the languid spirit of the season as effectively as Summertime by George Gershwin, from his 1934 opera Porgy and Bess (8.110287-88) which is, paradoxically, a tale of hardship and Read More …
Franz Ignaz Beck (1734–1809) was a member of the Mannheim school of composers, based at the court of Mannheim in the mid-18th century. The Mannheim orchestra was one of the largest and finest in Europe, and the Mannheim school’s spearheading of developments in orchestral style, technique and expression influenced symphonic composers during the rest of the Read More …