The Naxos Blog

Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China the same year the Cultural Revolution ended. This allowed him to get a unique kind of musical education as "western" music was again allowed back into China. This experience, along with his subsequent study in the United States, has helped him develop a unique compositional voice. In this podcast, he talks about his musical youth, and about his new CD with Future in REverse (FIRE) ensemble. Album details... Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559653

Since the first performance of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, there has been a steady stream of arrangements of the piece. By the end of the 19th century, there were already more than 600 published arrangements. Some were note very good, but others, such as the music featured in this podcast, were excellent. On this CD, Quatour Franz Joseph performs an arrangement of Don Giovanni for string quartet, made sometime around 1800.   Album details... Catalogue No.: ATMA ACD22559

Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, was one of the more colorful characters among Italian Renaissance composers. He wrote unusual and highly emotional music, and he was a murderer. This podcast looks at both his personal life (sometimes gruesome) as well as his music. Music by Gesualdo's fellow composers Pomponio Nenna and Luzzasco Luzzaschi is also included. The featured artists in this podcast, and on the CD are Concerto Italiano conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini. Album details... Catalogue No.: Naive OP30486

Morten Lauridsen is America's pre-eminent composer of choral music. His music, with long, arching, expressive lines is enjoyed by performers and audiences alike. In the CD featured in this podcast, the Elora Festival Singers under conductor Noel Edison present five of his pieces - O nata lux and O Magnum Mysterium, two of his most famous sacred works, plus collections of songs based on Italian Renaissance poetry, as well as poems by Robert Graves and Rainer Marie Rilke. Album details... Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559304

Although Quincy Porter is better known as a teacher, he was also a fine composer, violist and conductor. A rediscovery of his music is overdue, and what better place to start than with this CD of his complete viola music, with Eliesha Nelson, recording artist and member of the Cleveland Orchestra. This CD also features John McLaughlin Williams as conductor, pianist and violinist, harpist Douglas Rioth, and the Northwest Sinfonia. Album details... Catalogue No.: Dorian Sono Luminus DSL-90911

Over the course of his 73 years, Franz Joseph Haydn wrote a huge amount of music, including more than a dozen Masses. This podcast looks at those masses, and a new recording by Trinity Church Choir, REBEL Baroque Orchestra, J.Owen Burdick and Jane Glover. Album details... Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.508009  

With his CD of Elgar's Cello Concerto, and Alfred Schnittke's Viola Concerto, New York-based violist David Aaron Carpenter puts himself onstage as one of the leading violists of the new generation. His performance of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto also makes a compelling case for performing the piece more often on viola. In this CD, Carpenter is accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach.   Album details... Catalogue No.: Ondine ODE 1153-2

Orjan Sandred is a Swedish electro-acoustic composer who spends his summers in Europe, and his winters teaching at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. In this podcast, he describes his approach to sound and composition as he creates music that combines live performers with computer generated or altered sounds. Album details... Catalogue No.: Navona NV5814  

Johan Svendsen was the one of the leading figures in Norwegian music during the romantic era, both as a composer and a conductor. This podcast introduces you to his Norwegian Rhapsodies, as well as the music he wrote for Romeo and Juliet, and his piece Zorahayda, based on the story Rose of Alhambra by the American author Washington Irving (who also wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow). The performers are the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Bjarte Engeset. Album details... Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570322

The inspiration for Michael Daugherty's Metropolis Symphony can be traced all the way back to his youth, as he watched on television as the caped superhero rescued humanity - as especially Lois Lane - from all kinds of deadly situations. Daugherty's ability to allow the visual world to inspire the musical is evident in many of his works such as Deux Ex Machina, included on this CD, and Fire and Blood that was inspired by murals by Diego Rivera. The performers on this present CD include the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, pianist Terrence Wilson, and conductor Giancarlo Guerrero. Album details... Catalogue No.: Naxos American Classics 8.559635

Einojuhani Rautavaara is Finland's best known composer, especially internationally. Rautavaara's music has been described as a mixture of modernism and mystic romanticism - an attempt to define a compositional style that is unique, personal, and very hard to define. Among his finest works are 12 concertos, composed over the past four decades, and collected together in this 4-CD box on the Ondine label. Performers include violinist Elmar Oliveira, cellist Marko Ylonen, harpist Marielle Nordmann, organ player Kari Jussila, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and pianists Ralf Gothoni and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Album details... Catalogue No.: Ondine ODE1156-2Q

Fanfares and Overtures, the first CD by the esteemed Rutgers Wind Ensemble on Naxos Wind Band Classics, presents a dizzying range of music that include either fanfares or overtures. The CD includes music by Herbert Owen Reed, Vaclav Nelhybel, WIlliam Schuman and Karel Husa whose "Music for Prague" may be one of the finest pieces of musical protest music ever written. Album details... Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572230

Richard Strauss wrote some of the finest operas of the 20th century. Pieces like Elektra, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier helped push the limits of the operatic artform, and also established Strauss as one of the truly great composers for the media. In a few cases, he created orchestral suites from these stage works, and it's this music that is featured in this podcast, including his suites for Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau Ohne Shatten and Josephs-Legende. JoAnn Falletta conducts the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in in this new Naxos CD. Album details... Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572041

Missa Salisburgensis is a mass Heinrich Ignaz von Biber wrote for 53 individual voices and instruments, composed to celebrate the 11-hundreth anniversary of the founding of the archdiocese of Salzburg. I was composed to be performed in the Salzburg Cathedral - 444 feet long, with a ceiling more than 100 feet high. For this piece, Biber placed the audience in the middle, with the musicians divided into 8 groups all around them. You might call it the original Surround Sound.   Album details... Catalogue No.: NCA 60192

Danish music may be one of the finest under-discovered realms in all classical music. This is particularly true of music from the Romantic era, as this podcast and CD show. These violin concertos by Niels Gade, Peter Erasmus Lange-Muller and Rued Langgaard - hardly household names - deserve to be heard more widely on CD, and much more often in concert. These performances were recorded in 2009 with violin soloist Christina Astrand and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Storgards. Album details... Catalogue No.: Dacapo 6.220562