The Northern Chamber Orchestra

In 2017, Naxos Records celebrates its 30th anniversary. Founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, the label now boasts a catalogue of over 9,000 albums spanning every genre of classical music. This limited edition anniversary boxed set comprises thirty CDs spanning the wide range of the label's repertoire. Featuring releases from 1987 to 2016 and a host of stellar artists, every one of these discs has received critical acclaim and has contributed towards the huge success of Naxos: the world's largest independent classical record label. Naxos was launched in 1987 as a budget classical CD label, offering CDs at teh price of an LP when CDs cost about three times more than LPs.

In 2017, Naxos Records celebrates its 30th anniversary. Founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, the label now boasts a catalogue of over 9,000 albums spanning every genre of classical music. This limited edition anniversary boxed set comprises thirty CDs spanning the wide range of the label's repertoire. Featuring releases from 1987 to 2016 and a host of stellar artists, every one of these discs has received critical acclaim and has contributed towards the huge success of Naxos: the world's largest independent classical record label. Naxos was launched in 1987 as a budget classical CD label, offering CDs at teh price of an LP when CDs cost about three times more than LPs.

Christian Lindberg is perhaps the first classical trombonist to maintain a successful full-time performing career as a soloist. Though now considered among the instrument's foremost exponents, he actually took up the trombone fairly late, only starting playing at age 17 after hearing recordings by the great jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden. By 19, Lindberg was the principle trombonist of the Royal Opera Orchestra in Stockholm. But he left that position after just a year, saying he was bored playing in an orchestra.

Salvatore Accardo is an outstanding Italian violin virtuoso, best known as a master of the works of Niccolò Paganini, but equally accomplished across a wide variety of repertory for the instrument. His playing is characterized by a taut, visceral tone and a disciplined musical approach that avoids self-indulgence. Having also established himself as a successful conductor, chamber musician, and teacher, Accardo may be considered one of the most accomplished and influential musicians of his generation.

The four works on this album, all composed in the 1940s, embrace the lingering end of one musical tradition and the vigorous upsurge of another. Mellifluous, retrospective and playful, the Duet Concertino and Prelude to Capriccio were works of Richard Strauss’s Indian Summer – an old man’s refuge from the barbarism of war and its aftermath. What the public thought of them was incidental, even irrelevant. In the same decade, Aaron Copland and other younger American composers were reaching out, via radio, recordings and film, to a new mass audience. The European influence of Appalachian Spring and the Clarinet Concerto, though inescapable, was minimised in a populist, vernacular idiom that absorbed native folk music and jazz.

Walton has been heralded as the most important composer of the 20th century. I knew little of his work and wanted to 'hear' for myself. His musical range is impressive and I feel that he has influenced many contemporary composers.

Alun Francis is one of the most respected conductors on the international scene, and is particularly admired for his efforts in bringing international recognition to several great tonal symphonists active in the post-World War II years, and for other efforts on behalf of 20th century music. His "native" instrument is the French horn. He continued his studies on that instrument and took conducting while attending the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1960 to 1963.