Marek Bilinski

This new recording presents selected piano works of Fryderyk Chopin, and the return of pianist Marek Szlezer to, as he himself writes, the "piano house", which for him is the oeuvre of one of the most famous composers in the world.

The fact that Roussel's four symphonies aren't better known is a pity, but surely the fault of his own countrymen. Symphonies were never a French specialty, and of the four great French practitioners of the symphonic art at the first decades of this century (Honegger, Roussel, Tournemire, and Magnard), only Honegger seems to have firmly established himself in the international repertoire. While Roussel's Third was championed by conductors like Charles Munch and Leonard Bernstein, even in France the remaining works are neglected. They are, however, one and all, excellently crafted pieces: tuneful, pithy, and very listenable. If you like one, you'll like them all; so this first-rate set is both good listening and good sense.

Drewnowski started playing the piano as a young child. In 1975 he recorded piano sonatas by Scarlatti and Leonard Bernstein was so impressed by his performances that he invited him to the Tanglewood Music Festival. These days he is professor of piano at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and the Academy of Music in Łódź, Poland. Here he performs on a Pleyel 1848 fortepiano.

Paul Wranitzky moved to Vienna from his native Moravia at the age of 20, mixing with the likes of Haydn and Mozart. As the most important symphonist in Vienna in the late 1790s, his style influenced the early symphonies of Beethoven. The Symphony in D major ‘La Chasse’ reflects the popularity of hunting music, and is heard here for the first time in its expanded version. The overtures to Mitgefühl and Die gute Mutter represent Wranitzky’s skill as a composer for the theatre, as does the masterfully scored Symphony in C major in which the composer repurposes some incidental and ballet music.

A collection of arias selected from Bach's sacred works, featuring among others the evergreen favourite 'Schafe können sicher weiden' (better known by its English title 'Sheep may safely graze') and the haunting 'Erbarme dich' from the St Matthew Passion.

– David Smith

Johannes Brahms’ four symphonies were greeted by his contemporaries as the most promising answer to Beethoven’s legendary legacy, and they have remained at the core of the symphonic repertoire ever since. Steering clear of poetic titles and adhering to traditional forms, they are nonetheless full of drama and musical innovation. This digital boxset presents the symphonies in chronological order, performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Marek Janowski, one of the greatest interpreters of German Romantic repertoire.

Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58 (B. 71), is an extended setting for vocal soloists, choir and orchestra of the 20 stanzas of the Stabat Mater sequence. Dvořák sketched the composition in 1876 and completed it in 1877. It has been characterized as a sacred cantata and as an oratorio, and consists of ten movements of which only the first and the last are thematically connected.

Czech by birth, Paul Wranitzky settled in Vienna where he became highly respected as an orchestra leader and composer. Today overshadowed by his friends Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, Wranitzky was the most important symphonist in Vienna in the late 1790s. The colourful overture to Der Schreiner (‘The Carpenter’) is followed by three contrasting symphonies. The dramatic ‘La Tempesta’ contains elaborate storm effects, which predate Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ by over a decade. The compact Symphony in A major represents Wranitzky’s early symphonic period of the mid-1780s while the Symphony in F major is notable for its catchy themes and masterful scoring.