The Naxos Blog

For those unfamiliar with the name of Nikolay Yakovlevich Myaskovsky, Raymond Bisha’s podcast presents the composer’s calling card as the ‘father of the Soviet symphony’. Having lived from 1881 to 1950, Myaskovsky spent all his life under the restrictive influence of Joseph Stalin, yet managed to produce 27 symphonies that preserved his individual voice. This Read More ...

Raymond Bisha talks with Barthold Kuijken about the historical perspective and informed interpretation behind a new release of Baroque flute concertos that feature Kuijken as soloist, accompanied by the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. View album details of The Grand Mogul – BLAVET, M. / LECLAIR, J.-M. / PERGOLESI, G.B. / TELEMANN, G.P. at naxos.com Catalogue No.: Read More ...

Raphaël Feuillâtre, winner of the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America’s 2018 International Concert Artist Competition, shares his success with the public through this attractively varied programme; a recording contract with Naxos forms part of the winner’s bundle of opportunities each year. Raymond Bisha presents his selection of intimate compositions. View album details of Guitar Recital: Read More ...

There are scintillating sounds aplenty in our new release of orchestral works by Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904-1987). Raymond Bisha introduces a programme of two overtures and a pair of symphonies by the Russian composer who endeavoured to position himself as both a progressive and a conservative during his country’s difficult Soviet era. The performances are by Read More ...

This podcast from the Naxos Sounds Interesting series presents a selection of soporific representations by composers down the centuries, from John Dowland to Benjamin Britten. The presenter is Richard Kennedy.      

Complementing the artist line-up of Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony on this recording are the Violins of Hope, a poignant collection of restored instruments that survived the Holocaust. Jonathan Leshnoff wrote his Symphony No. 4 with this unique set of orchestral voices in mind; Raymond Bisha introduces the performance and the background to its Read More ...

Manuel de Falla is renowned as the greatest Spanish composer of the early 20th century, whose genius rested in part on his ability to meld diverse stylistic, folk or literary influences into distinctive new musical languages, forging masterworks that would ultimately become cultural emblems of his homeland. Raymond Bisha presents a new release of a Read More ...

The Icelandic singer/composer Björk released her concept album Vespertine in 2001. Raymond Bisha introduces a new audio recording of an opera that was born of that release. The inherent theatricality of Björk’s original was the inspiration for an expert creative team to effect the transition from studio to stage, from sound tracks to symphonic support. Read More ...

Yvar-Emilian Mikhashoff (1941–1993) was an American pianist who collaborated with the publishing house Quadrivium Press to commission composers from all over the world to write piano pieces based on the tango dance form. An intriguing selection of those 100-plus commissions are performed on this Grand Piano release by Hanna Shybayeva, the works’ eclecticism reflected in Read More ...

Berlioz left us a number of Shakespeare-inspired works, chief among them his masterpiece Roméo et Juliette. The work took a decade to complete and is cast in an innovative form, a kind of ‘super-symphony’ that incorporates elements of symphony, opera and oratorio. Raymond Bisha introduces this new recording by Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre National Read More ...

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 ...

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.

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 ...

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 ...