Delius Florida Suite & Orchestral Works

“An absolute must for children young and old (Háry János)”– Grammophone
“The Psalmus Hungaricus receives a bright and forceful performance under Kertész, dramatically sung by tenor Lajos Kozma.”– Gramophone Classical Good CD Guide
"Committed and idiomatic performances recorded in three-dimensional sound. The highlights from the collection are the Suite, the sets of orchestral dances and the Peacock Variations – one of the finest sets ever written; but there is interest too in the rarer Concerto for Orchestra – earlier than Bartók’s and equally nationalistic – and the three-movement Symphony of 1961. – George Hall, BBC Music Magazine
"It’s marvellous to have Kertész’s brilliantly idiomatic performances of Kodály’s best-known works. Peter Ustinov’s narration of Háry János threads the whole together." – Jan Smaczny, BBC Music Magazine
"In Dorati's hands the passionate Andante [from the Symphony] is strong in gypsy feeling and the jolly, folk-dance finale is colourful and full of vitality." – Penguin Guide

D’Indy was a contemporary of Debussy and Ravel, and a pupil of César Franck. Fauré described him as ‘The Samson of Music’ for his multifarious and generous-minded work as a composer, conductor, educator and propagandist who greatly strengthened French musical culture. Today the music of d’Indy is sadly neglected, which is why Chandos and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra have decided to embark upon a series devoted to his orchestral works with conductor Rumon Gamba. With a style essentially eclectic and strongly influenced above all by Beethoven and Wagner, d’Indy particularly excelled in orchestral composition. He drew particular inspiration from his native region in southern France, and formed a body of post-romantic works richly orchestrated, often inflected with folk-like melodies and employing Franck’s well-known ‘cyclic method’.

This is the fourth and final volume of colourful and highly appealing orchestral works by the Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen. The series is performed by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Neeme Järvi.

It is good to welcome this set of the extravagantly brooding orchestral music of the Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock.

This release documents the work of Flemish composer Flor Alpaerts (1876–1954). He was born into a life of privation, but studied at the Flemish School of Music in Antwerp and became a noteworthy violinist and conductor, Read more Pallieter of 1924 is based on a 1916 novel of the same title by Felix Timmermans, and it serves to document the initial phase of Alpaerts’s career as a composer. The result is an almost Delius-like essay that projects moments of joy leavened by an all-encompassing melancholy.

This disc offers a lion’s maw worth of the popular Grainger. Many of these pieces are in versions prepared for performance by Leopold Stokowski. All the great hits are there in balmy arrangements, recordings and performances. Somewhat breaking the mould is the Delian warm bath that is Dreamery. Alongside this element we get the phantasmagoric The Warriors – his largest and most exuberantly kaleidoscopic work written between 1913 and 1916 at the instigation of Beecham for the Ballets Russes. It was never performed by them. If you know Chisholm’s splendid First Piano Concerto you will know what to expect. This feral celebration of warriors from every country and age explodes in showers of aural shrapnel with at least a strand or two owed to Stravinsky’s Rite, Van Dieren’s Chinese Symphony, Delius’s Cuckoo and Bax’s Summer Music.

George Enescu is one of the great misteries of classical music. As a child he was so prodigious as to have written 4 study symphonies on the age of 15. His first symphony was writtem when he was almost 17 and reveals a radiant,colourfull yet innovative kind of music for his time.
Enescu was discribed by Casalas as the most brilliant and gifted composer since Mozart,but his orchestral works are hardly played or recorded……

CAHANA JOEL @ Amazon.com