Updates from the world's leading classical music label
Raymond Bisha presents an overview of Beethoven’s nine symphonies as a companion resource to the first of Naxos’ monthly digital albums presenting the music of Beethoven in this 250th anniversary year of his birth. January’s compilation album (9.30209) spotlights the symphonic journey and stylistic progression from Beethoven’s Second Symphony to his Ninth Symphony, ‘Choral’. The Read More …
Beethoven certainly has the wind in his sails with this tremendous release of music for wind ensemble, a genre that formed a regular part of entertainment in the composer’s day. Included on the recording, for example, is his Sextet for winds in E flat major that was well received by a critic at the time Read More …
Although classical music is able to fill a multitude of niches, most would agree that it falls into two broad categories: works that prompt the listener to formulate a picture in their mind of the composer’s initial inspiration (a story, an event from history, a painting, and so on); and pieces that elicit an emotional Read More …
The Creatures of Prometheus was Beethoven’s only full-length ballet score. The work premiered in March 1801 and the composer’s own version for piano solo was published later the same year. The work relates the story from Greek mythology of Prometheus, a lofty spirit who endeavoured to lift human beings from a state of ignorance into Read More …
Working with a small selection from this month’s new releases, I’ve forged a theme of the orchestra as a scene-setter, story-teller, support artist, symphonic duettist, and stand-alone protagonist. Many orchestral concerts begin with a warm-up act, a few minutes of attention-grabbing music in which the orchestra flexes its facility for colour and impact. Such concert Read More …
Mozart is reckoned to have posited that silence, paradoxically, is the most powerful element in music. And I once read that, while there’s one particular zone of your brain that is stimulated when an object starts to produce a sound, it’s a different part that reacts when a clock, for example, ceases its tick-tock and Read More …
An article in The Independent caught my eye a couple of months ago; maybe yours, too. A ghostly, unfinished, non-miniature portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots had been discovered layered beneath a later painting. The article about this colourfully tragic monarch gave a detailed account of both the queen and her unfinished likeness. I then Read More …
Borrowing other people’s music and weaving it into your own composition is far from uncommon. We’re not talking plagiarism here i.e. passing other people’s music off as your own, which seems to happen far more regularly in pop music than in classical. A composer might borrow from himself, which explains why you might get a Read More …
Most people know about the curse of the ninth, but if you don’t, here’s a quick explanation. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Choral (8.550181) laid down a few benchmarks. Its influence was felt most recently, perhaps, during the dawn of the age of the compact disc. Consideration had to be given to how many minutes of music Read More …