Chandos Official

That Aaron Copland's ballet " Hear Ye! Hear Ye!"(1934), could be due to the rather dry subject: a trial for murder in a nightclub. "Appalachian Spring" with its scenes from rural Pennsylvania is more tranquil. His music, which programmatically evokes a new simplicity, has made this ballet a success.

For the third volume of his musical tribute to Russia, Barry Douglas has selected a range of love songs and dances by Tchaikovsky that span much of his composing life.

Peter Donohoe CBE studied at Chetham’s School of Music and Leeds University before going on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Derek Wyndham and in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod.

Although most widely remembered for his operettas in partnership with W.S. Gilbert, Sir Arthur Sullivan was the most famous of all British composers of the nineteenth century.

Described by BBC Music Magazine as ‘A worthy successor to Julian Bream’, the Australian-born guitarist Craig Ogden is one of the most exciting artists of his generation.

Handel wrote incidental music for only one play, Tobias Smollett's Alceste, and it was never produced, so the composer, characteristically, recycled most of its major numbers. In this recording, Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company deliver a distinguished account of the rarely performed or recorded complete score.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is recognised today as one of the world’s finest interpreters of Haydn’s piano works, International Piano having described him as ‘Haydn’s greatest contemporary keyboard exponent.’ In the first five volumes of his ongoing series devoted to Haydn’s sonatas he has been applauded for his intelligent musicianship, crisp technique, and sheer sense of joy in the music. In this concerto recording he performs in partnership with the conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy, the two united by an admiration for Haydn’s infectious good humour and art of the unexpected.

Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra present Vol. 2 in their series of the Symphonies of Atterberg. It is part of a larger recording project focussed on Scandinavian music, which has already seen Neeme Järvi give highly regarded performances of works by the Norwegian composers Halvorsen and Svendsen with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.

Aside from Elgar’s fascinating and obligatory Falstaff composed in 1913 (a Symphonic Study according to the partition, but in reality a symphonic poem in the grand tradition of Strauss— about whom Elgar probably thought when he wrote his masterpiece, and the rather present solo cello cannot help but remind us of Strauss’ Don Quixote, composed sixteen years earlier), the album distinguishes itself by a few melodies with orchestra from the same Elgar, a repertoire unfortunately too often neglected and yet of breathtaking beauty (we hear, in a pinch, the Sea Pictures performed from time to time, but that’s all folks).

Tasmin Little is the soloist in a premiere recording of Finzi. This exciting release features the premiere recording of Finzi's Concerto for Small Orchestra and Violin.