Kevin Puts: Symphony No 4 Marin Alsop, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (2013)

While he left an extensive and significant output of stage-works, the contribution of Kurt Weill to orchestral and instrumental genres was largely restricted to his formative years. The angular Symphony No. 1, completed in 1921, reflects something of the turmoil of post-World War I. In 1933, with Hitler in power, Weill escaped to Paris where he wrote Symphony No. 2, “one of the 20th century’s forgotten masterpieces”. The Symphonic Nocturne, adapted from the Broadway musical, Lady in the Dark, a 1940 collaboration between Weill, Moss Hart and Ira Gershwin, exhibits all the hallmarks of bitter-sweet lyricism of Weill’s theatrical works from his American years.

Commissioned in 1965 by the Dean of Chichester, Bernstein’s colourful Chichester Psalms is one of the composer’s most successful and accessible works on religious texts, contrasting spiritual austerity with impulsive rhythms in a contemplation of peace. The composer fashioned his Oscar-nominated score to the 1954 movie On the Waterfront into a symphonic suite, skilfully capturing the oppression of the New York dockyards in the ’50s. The Three Dance Episodes were extracted from the popular On The Town, Bernstein's first successful foray into musical theatre.

Philip Glass has enjoyed a degree of popularity unusual among contemporary composers. A pupil of Nadia Boulanger, he was also influenced by the Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar and has won a reputation as an exponent of minimalism, based on the systematic repetition of a motif, modified or extended. In both the epically-proportioned Second Symphony and the smaller scale Third Symphony (for chamber orchestra), Glass returns, in his own way, to his roots at the Juilliard School, writing polyharmonies, rousing finales, and fully formed symphonic paragraphs. They are true symphonies in scope, structure and seriousness of purpose.

While he left an extensive and significant output of stage-works, the contribution of Kurt Weill to orchestral and instrumental genres was largely restricted to his formative years. The angular Symphony No. 1, completed in 1921, reflects something of the turmoil of post-World War I. In 1933, with Hitler in power, Weill escaped to Paris where he wrote Symphony No. 2, “one of the 20th century’s forgotten masterpieces”. The Symphonic Nocturne, adapted from the Broadway musical, Lady in the Dark, a 1940 collaboration between Weill, Moss Hart and Ira Gershwin, exhibits all the hallmarks of bitter-sweet lyricism of Weill’s theatrical works from his American years.

This set brings together for the first time Britten's complete Decca recordings as pianist and conductor in which he performs music by other composers - an astonishing variety of music that ranges from large-scale choral works by Bach and Purcell to Schumann and Elgar, as well as orchestral works by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. Solo vocal repertory is generously represented with important works by Schubert and Schumann and early twentieth-century English song. Chamber music features Britten the pianist in partnership with two of Britten's closest collaborators: Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter.

This set brings together for the first time Britten's complete Decca recordings as pianist and conductor in which he performs music by other composers - an astonishing variety of music that ranges from large-scale choral works by Bach and Purcell to Schumann and Elgar, as well as orchestral works by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. Solo vocal repertory is generously represented with important works by Schubert and Schumann and early twentieth-century English song. Chamber music features Britten the pianist in partnership with two of Britten's closest collaborators: Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter.