Denon Anechoic Orchestral Music Recording

Here’s a collection unrivalled in its scope within the current catalogue, of orchestral works by one of the most prolific of 20th-century, Paul Hindemith, whose reputation as a purveyor of ‘useful’ music has perhaps overshadowed his colourful orchestrations and often powerfully dramatic transformations of a wide range of extra-musical inspirations. His masterpiece may be the opera he based on the life and work of the painter of the Isenheim alterpiece, Matthias Grünewald, but the Mathis der Maler symphony he derived from its music is hardly less emotive.

From the Philip Glass Archive – Vol. 2: Orchestral Music represents the second release in a series discs to be released on Orange Mountain Music from the vast archive of recordings made in the last 40 years of Philip Glass’ incredible recording career. These recordings span the entire range of Philip Glass’ compositional activities and will include music for film, theater, dance, and concert hall in a wide variety of scores including chamber music, solo instruments and orchestral works.

George Bernard Shaw once said that “England and America are two countries separated by the same language!” As an American living in London when these recordings were made, I can attest to that sentiment! Perhaps my own grappling with the ever witty Bernard Shaw is found on this set of recordings, with pieces from the UK and the USA that span nearly 122 years of musical history. While many of the musical materials used by these 5 composers are similar, with an emphasis on folk music, classical idioms, and a generally warm and Romantic sensibility, they could not be more different from each other.

The Polish composer Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925) is best remembered for a handful of virtuoso piano pieces, but he also produced a substantial body of orchestral music, most of it unperformed for decades. Astonishingly, he was only in his early twenties when he wrote his monumental ‘Symphonic Poem in Four Movements’ Johanna d’Arc – heard here in its first recording – a vast symphonic fresco depicting the life, death and transfiguration of the heroine of Friedrich Schiller’s 1801 play, Die Jungfrau von Orleans. Moszkowski admitted to the influence of Wagner and Raff on the work – but he also managed to prefigure the musical language of the Hollywood epics of sixty years later. As pianist, Ian Hobson has a long-standing relationship with Toccata Classics, and this is the fourth recording he has made in his alter ego as conductor – at the helm of the Sinfonia Varsovia, as with his previous albums, which uncovered the early orchestral music of Martinu. This is the first of a series of Ian Hobson recordings for Toccata Classics that will focus on Moszkowski’s piano and orchestral music.

This second volume of works features two orchestral scores by composer Philip Glass. The first score, "Days and Nights in Rocinha" (A Dance for Dennis Russell Davies and Orchestra) premiered in Vienna in 1998. The 23 minute work is Philip Glass' homage and musical tribute to a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro where the composer spent many summers. The second work, the 27 minute "Persephone" (TSE), is a five movement work for orchestra and chorus. It was conceived and recorded for Robert Wilson's theater installations of the same name in the mid-1990's.

Throughout the history of music, various composers have been unjustly neglected until an enterprising and influential conductor or orchestra take it upon themselves to resurrect the said composer. Mahler was one such composer. Granville Bantock is still waiting for his music to be discovered.

The first two Toccata Classics volumes of the orchestral music of the English composer David Hackbridge Johnson (b. 1963) presented three mighty symphonies, conceived on a large scale and powerful in their utterance. The Fifteenth Symphony, tone-poems and other works offered here show a change in focus: an engagement with the natural world, reflecting the poetry of changing light and shifting winds, with man’s impermanent presence dwarfed by the implacable grandeur of nature. Here Paul Mann, a frequent Toccata Classics artist, conducts the orchestra of the very town – Liepāja, on the coast of Latvia – that inspired the Fifteenth Symphony.