Moderat

Following her acclaimed début recital, Marina Staneva returns with a programme of works by the Spanish-Catalan composer Federico Mompou. The programme opens with Paisajes (Landscapes), written in 1942, 1947, and 1960. The first two pieces are dedicated to the Catalan pianist Carmen Bravo, whom Mompou met after his return from Paris to Barcelona in 1942, and subsequently married.

A box grouping the ballets of Piotr Tchaikovsky may not be particularly original, but this Decca reissue of Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker performed by the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under Valery Gergiev nonetheless requires extra attention. The new liner notes by Julian Haylock coming with the set fail to remind us that these ballets were either created for St. Peterburg's Mariinsky or made famous by that theatre and to this day never left its repertory.

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.