St Martin in The Field

Although it was Donizetti’s first theatrical success, the original 1822 version of this violent love story was never given a complete performance because the tenor cast in the role of the hero died shortly before the first night. Even so, Donizetti quickly adapted this role for a mezzo-soprano, achieving his first theatrical success. Opera Rara presents the world premiere of the original tenor version. In addition the recording includes six more pieces written for the 1824 revival.

Though the saxophone has never found a regular place in the orchestra it has nevertheless captured the interest of a long line of composers; a square peg doesn't need to fit into any orchestral round hole when it is centre-stage. It is, too, one of the instruments whose technique has been advanced by players of jazz—a field in which John Harle remains active. There are now exponents of awesome ability, worthy of the attention of serious composers such as, in this recording, Bennett—who is also given to crossing the musical tracks.

This edition of Handel’s Messiah is a landmark recording both for the Academy and in the history of the work, being both the first recording made with the Academy’s own chorus, and the first (and as far as we are aware, only) recording of the version used by Handel for the work’s 1743 London premiere. Sir Neville Marriner’s deliberate choice to break with the massed-choir treatments of the past was greeted enthusiastically by the public, selling over a quarter of a million copies in the first three years, and leading Fanfare’s Michael Carter to remark in 2010: “There have been many recordings of Messiah since this 1976 release and there will no doubt be many more to come, but few, if any, will match, let alone surpass, this of Marriner.”

Things that don't fit neatly into pigeonholes have always had a hard time, and so it has been with the saxophone; Hoffnung's string-tuba would have had very big problems. Sax was a tireless inventor: his plans for a monster canon, and a device for playing loud music from Parisian high ground never bore fruit, but the former anticipated Saddam Hussein and the latter, scaled down, is with us as Muzak. Though the saxophone has never found a regular place in the orchestra it has nevertheless captured the interest of a long line of composers; a square peg doesn't need to fit into any orchestral round hole when it is centre-stage.

Håkan Hardenberger has earned a reputation of breaking new ground for the trumpet, commissioning works from the world’s foremost composers. On this disc, he shows a different side to himself in arrangements of his favourite songs and film themes.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (ed. Franz Beyer): Mass No. 19 in D minor, K626, "Requiem" -
Ileana Cotrubas (soprano), Helen Watts (contralto), Robert Tear (tenor), John Shirley-Quirk (bass),
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and Chorus conducted by Neville Marriner
Classical | 1 CD | EAC Rip | 244 Mb | FLAC+LOG+Cue | Full scans | 3 RS links
Publisher: Decca

Neville Marriner's version is certainly worth a place among the two or three most satisfactory recordings of this great work; and in its use of the Beyer text it has some claim to being closer than any of the other available versions to the sound Mozart himself had in mind.
Gramophone

This volume of Chandos' series of Walton's Music from the Olivier films includes Richard III: A Shakespearean Scenario and Major Barbara: a Shavian Sequence, concert arrangements by Christopher Palmer, as well an excerpt of incidental music from John Gielgud's 1941 stage production of Macbeth. These particular excerpts don't reveal Walton at his most consistent or his most profound, but they do illustrate his skill at writing colorful, evocative music with a strong sense of drama. Richard III is such a dark play and, heard out of context, Walton's music doesn't seem to have the gravitas to match its malignant tone.