Naxos Classical Spotlight

Conductor Adam Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra have already persuaded audiences to absorb the symphonies of Brahms and Beethoven through their distinctive lens. Now they're midway through a series of recordings of Haydn's great late symphonies. Raymond Bisha's conversation with Fischer draws the curtain on just how he fathoms Haydn's essence: “He's hiding his ideas in the scores, and we have to discover them.”

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, perhaps best known for his numerous film scores and works for guitar, also composed in a variety of other genres, from transcriptions for cello to violin concertos, piano works and orchestral music. Raymond Bisha turns our attention in this podcast to his three string quartets, written respectively in 1929, 1948 and 1964, and heard in authoritative performances on a new album by Italy's noted Quartetto Adorno.

Grammy winning Panamanian jazz musician Danilo Pérez is many things - pianist, composer, educator, humanitarian, organizer of the Panama Jazz Festival, UNESCO Artist for Peace and Panama's Cultural Ambassador.  In this podcast he talks about his new album Lumen that he recorded with Sweden's Bohuslän Big Band.  

In this podcast, Raymond Bisha talks with American composer Margaret Brouwer about the inspiration and compositional approach behind the orchestral pieces on the programme of her new album. Spanning a period of twenty-four years, the works are brilliantly performed by Marin Alsop and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, vividly capturing the music's wide range of expression, from sparkling sonorities to virtuosic challenges and beautiful evocations of nature.

Five years into the celebrated Naxos Music of Brazil series, we reach Vol. 21 and the music of Oscar Lorenzo Fernández (1897-1948), who was a key figure in the cultural life of Rio de Janeiro.

Lorenzo Fernández’s two symphonies suffered neglect after the composer’s untimely death at the age of fifty. Raymond Bisha introduces the world premiere recording of the powerful First Symphony, and the first modern studio recording of the programmatic Second Symphony.

Rachel Podger talks about the joys of consort music, the Brecon Baroque Festival, and "The Muses Restor'd", her new album with Brecon Baroque with music from George Frideric Handel, William Lawes, John Blow, Matthew Locke, Henry Purcell, John Jenkins and many others.

Smetana's Má vlast is an unprecedented cycle of six related symphonic poems that evoke Czech legends and celebrate the beauty of the country’s landscapes. Received with “unending storms of applause” at its 1882 premiere, Má vlast reflects the unique characteristics that form the heart and soul of the Czech nation. Raymond Bisha introduces an acclaimed 1975 recording of the work by the St Louis Symphony under Walter Susskind, which has been given a new lease of life by returning to the original Elite Recordings master tapes and effecting a high-definition transfer of the original sound.

Pianist Quynh Nguyen discusses her recording of the complete piano works of Paul Chihara, the distinguished American composer whose output includes the scores for over 100 motion pictures and television series. Past exchanges between performer and composer about the items on the programme reflect an intensely deep and detailed collaboration, with AllMusic.com warmly welcoming the album as “ingenious and richly evocative and beautifully and quietly played … this is a wonderful release.” Raymond Bisha presents.

During his lifetime, Charles Martin Loeffler was one of the most performed American composers.   His octet was completed in 1896, played twice the following year and then forgotten. Clarnetist Graeme Steele Johnson rediscovered the manuscript in the Library of Congress, took a year to create a performing edition from the score, and recorded the work for Delos, DE3603.  In this podcast, he talks about that journey.

 JoAnn Falletta, conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, discusses a programme of orchestral works by composer/conductor Lukas Foss, who was both a predecessor of hers in Buffalo and a mentor to her. Highlighting his eclecticism as a composer, who went wherever his mind took him, Raymond Bisha discusses the performers' latest album, which features four works that colourfully reflect Foss' wide embrace and expert craftsmanship.

Irish cellist Gerald Peregrine introduces his latest album of early 20th-century British works for cello and piano, interweaving the classical and folk-based music with a personal narrative of community engagement, in which his live music-making initiatives have achieved truly significant and touching results.

This podcast spotlights Israeli mandolinist Alon Sariel, who provides an entree into the engaging world of the mandolin, an instrument that perhaps enjoys a relatively low profile but commands a fascinating global reach. Alon Sariel's second album of transcriptions of works by J. S. Bach for mandolin blends technical precision with nuanced artistry and masterly adaptations. The presenter is Raymond Bisha.

Marin Alsop discusses her latest release – an album of orchestral works by John Adams – with Raymond Bisha, exploring just what it is about Adams' music that makes him the leading nominee for  the title of America's greatest living composer, not least for scores that inhabit 'the groove' with conspicuous relish.

Louis Wayne Ballard (1931-2007) – also known as 'Honganozhe', which means 'Stands with Eagles' in the Quapaw language – was the first indigenous North American composer of art music, and his extensive knowledge of the music, dance and mythology of this culture informed his compositions. This podcast reviews a new album of his works that are eclectic in style, uniquely varied and thoroughly engaging. The presenter is Raymond Bisha. The guests are conductor John Jeter and Jerod Impich-chāachaaha Tate, who was a student, friend and colleague of the composer.

In January 2024, Finnish accordionist/conductor Janne Valkeajoki released a captivating album of music by French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, which Valkeajoki himself arranged for his instrument. Raymond Bisha's conversation with the performer delves into the various musical transformations and performance mechanics that were involved in the masterly transfer from harpsichord strings to accordion reeds.

Orfeo Vecchi was held in high regard by his contemporaries for the sacred music he produced towards the end of the 16th century. Raymond Bisha introduces a new recording of the twenty pieces that comprise his third book of Motets for Six Voices. The works form a rich, eclectic programme, and the performances by Cappella Musicale Eusebiana directed by Don Denis Silano elegantly express the pictorial aspects of the texts that Vecchi achieved through subtle dialogue, antiphony and counterpoint.

Raymond Bisha introduces a new album of works for string quartet by Florence Price and Leo Sowerby, who were both prominent members of the Chicago music community in the 1930s and 1940s. Most of Florence Price’s compositions remained unpublished at her death, and her String Quartet in A minor was not performed in her lifetime. Her Five Folksongs in Counterpoint entwine and enrich the famous melodies with African American vernacular idioms and colourful harmony, while Sowerby’s String Quartet in G minor reveals music undeserving of its decades of obscurity in the Avalon Quartet's world premiere recording of the work.

Raymond Bisha's latest podcast introduces the world premiere recording of Joseph Rheinberger's arrangement for two pianos of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Composed by Bach in 1741, the work fell into oblivion before re-emerging as part of a movement of discovery generations later. In order to breathe new life into them, such masterpieces might undergo arrangements, transcriptions and other manipulations. In this case, Rheinberger's 1883 version adds new parts to Bach's original score.

George Gershwin's ever popular Rhapsody in Blue was first performed in February 1924. To mark the centenary of that celebrated event, pianist Jeffrey Biegel commissioned composer Peter Boyer to write a work for piano and orchestra that would be a 21st-century partner to Gershwin's original. Raymond Bisha talks to both composer and soloist about the gestation of this celebratory new work that captures a similar propulsive energy, while interweaving allusions to blues influences and lyrical evocations of American vistas.

Raymond Bisha introduces a programme of works for piano and orchestra by Chopin, performed by legendary pianist Abbey Simon. Once hailed by renowned critic Harold C. Schonberg of The New York Times as a “supervirtuoso”, Simon was a great American pianist in the great Romantic tradition, who imbued his effortless virtuoso technique with a uniformly clear sound. Having passed away in 2019 at the age of ninety-nine, most of his recorded output was for the VOX label. This album includes Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, Fantasy on Polish Airs and the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise Brillante.

Raised in Medellín, Colombia, Billy Arcila has lived in the United States for over 40 years, where he teaches and performs as one of California’s foremost guitarists. In this podcast, Raymond Bisha presents the first album to be made of his music. Performed by the composer himself, it contains works written across Ancila's entire compositional life, from his first published work to his most recent. Interspersed with the music of other admired composers, Arcila’s autobiographical guitar music embraces the nostalgic, the verdant and the vibrant.  This album also includes music by Fabio Salazar Orozco, Jorge Becerra, Gustavo Gómez Ardila, Sam Bigney and others.

A podcast featuring the Valencia Baryton Project and their new recording of music by Franz Joseph Haydn.  Haydn was music director of the Esterházy Court at Eisenstadt for twenty-five years. It was where Prince Nikolaus commissioned him to write trios for the baryton, a bowed, stringed instrument similar to the viol but with extra plucked strings that enabled performers to accompany themselves. Haydn wrote string trios (baryton, viola, cello) of elegance, refinement and poise that encapsulate a rich variety of moods, a selection of which is introduced on this podcast by Raymond Bisha. Seldom performed or recorded, the baryton trios attest to Haydn’s limitless powers of invention in every medium.

Raymond Bisha introduces the fifteenth and final volume in Konstantin Scherbakov's recordings of the complete piano works of Leopold Godowsky, on the Marco Polo label, in which the programme comprises a number of the arrangements Godowsky made of Chopin's Études. Reflecting on his mammoth undertaking, the virtuoso pianist notes that “this project to record Leopold Godowsky's complete piano works began in 1997 and has taken me 26 years to complete. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this is one of the largest and most important recording projects of the piano repertoire, through which many works have received their premiere recordings.”

Conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewski spent 19 years as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, from 1960 to 1979, during which time he developed it into one of the finest orchestras in North America. They made many recordings together, mostly for the VOX and Mercury labels, from which Raymond Bisha has selected two remastered albums from the VOX catalogue that demonstrate their distinguished achievements. The programmes of music by Beethoven and Mozart include Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 17 and 27, featuring Walter Klien as soloist.

Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos was also an accomplished guitarist and cellist, and his wonderful music for the latter instrument takes full advantage of the lyrical and dramatic capabilities of the instrument. In this episode of Naxos Classical Spotlight, Raymond Bisha explores a new recording of his two Cello Concertos, together with his Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra, that features solo cellist Antonio Meneses and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Isaac Karabtchevsky.

As the record label Delos Productions turns 50, we celebrate with an interview with pianist Carol Rosenberger who, with her friend Amelia Haygood, helped create the Delos label for which Carol also did many recordings.  As a concert pianist, record executive and also as polio survivor, Carol's story is one of courage, determination and grace.

This podcast features Raymond Bisha in conversation with conductor Kenneth Kiesler about the rediscovery, rescue and reconstruction of two operas by James P. Johnson (1894–1955), De Organizer with a libretto by Langston Hughes, and The Dreamy Kid, with words by Eugene O'Neill. JP Johnson was renowned as an influential jazz pianist but was largely unknown as a composer of opera.  It was Johnson’s express hope that two of his short stage works, written in the late 1930s, would one day form a double-bill. Which they did, but not until they were finally performed in 2006, and released on disc in 2023.

Another podcast featuring historic recordings on the VOX label, this one explores the recordings of Tchaikovsky’s music by the Utah Symphony Orchestra under Maurice Abravanel, who was the ensemble’s music director for more than 30 years. From the performances, to the production team of Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz, the liner notes by Richard Freed, and of course Tchaikovsky’s music itself, there are many reasons why these  from the 1970s are still so popular. 

This podcast features American composer Jennifer Higdon in a wide-ranging conversation with Raymond Bisha, during which she describes the long swathe of influences on her composing career. The musical spotlights comprise extracts from her latest recording for Naxos of two powerfully engaging works: the Concerto for Orchestra, written in 2002 and demanding virtuosity from principal players, individual sections and the entire orchestra alike; and her pyrotechnic Duo Duel, a concerto for two percussionists written in 2020, that boasts a killer cadenza (during which you should hold on to your hat) and a diaphanous opening (for which you should hold your breath, and with which this podcast begins…).  This recording features solo percussionists Matthew Strauss and Svet Stoyanov, with the Houston Symphony conducted by Robert Spano

In this episode of Naxos Classical Spotlight, Raymond Bisha presents the first in a series of podcasts that explore newly remastered recordings on the VOX label dating from the 1970s. This episode features four albums by the St Louis Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, in which the orchestra and solo pianists Abbey Simon and Jeffrey Siegel variously perform works by Rachmaninov and Gershwin. The ‘silent stars’, however, are Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz, the albums’ original, legendary recording engineers who are credited with producing some of the finest ever examples of recorded orchestral sound.

Brazilian composer Claudio Santoro (1919–1989) proved a dynamic force for his country’s classical music scene. His life was both intertwined with, and deeply influenced by, the political and social events playing out around him, from the building of the Berlin Wall in Europe to political upheavals in his homeland. Through it all, his compositions reflected a life of distinctive musical exploration.  This album is part of Naxos's ongoing Music of Brazil series.

Raymond Bisha introduces Naxos’ fifth album devoted to the music of leading American composer, Jonathan Leshnoff. The themes of this mixed programme of his recent works are remembrance, memorialisation and hopefulness. The works on this album are Elegy, Second Violin Concerto, and Of Thee We Sing. As the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing was approaching, conductor Alexander Mickelthwate reached out to Leshnoff to propose a memorial commission, a piece for chorus and orchestra “that transcends the atrocity and focuses on all the good that came out of it in the last 25 years. A city growing together." Leshnoff called composing Of Thee We Sing “the most serious commission I have ever received”. The soloist in the Second Violin Concerto is Noah Bendix-Balgley. The Oklahoma City Philharmonic and the Canterbury Voices are conducted by Alexander Mickelthwate.

Naxos Classical Spotlight looks at the life of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–1799) – a brilliant swordsman, athlete, violin virtuoso and gifted composer – might well lay claim to being the most talented figure in an age of remarkable individuals. Raymond Bisha gives an overview of this remarkable life, binding the disparate elements of his career with the constant beauty of his violin concertos.

Conductor and Naxos artist Marin Alsop discusses Robert Schumann’s four symphonies in the wake of her recordings of the works as reorchestrated by Mahler (8.574429 and 8.574430). Following observations about instrumental developments of the time, Mahler’s myriad tweaks to the score, and the somewhat bipolar flavour of the music (with counterpoint always at hand as a periodic stabiliser), she moves on to a detailed appreciation of each symphony, demonstrating Schumann’s distinctive contribution to the development of the genre “with one foot in the past, and one in the future.”

In this eposode of Naxos Classical Spotlight Raymond Bisha introduces Naxos’ new album of the complete works for solo piano by leading American composer John Corigliano. During their conversation together, the composer gives insight into the creative genesis of all the works on the programme, which span a period of some fifty years: from the 1968 Piano Concerto (“The first piece I ever wrote for orchestra”) to Prelude for Paul, written in 2021 with an unusual conception. The solo pianist is Philip Edward Fisher, hailed by John Corigliano for his “consummate technique and great musical intelligence.”

"A forgotten treasure. Marin Alsop discusses Hindemith.

This podcast features Marin Alsop in conversation with Raymond Bisha following the release of her first album for Naxos as chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. She assumed the post in 2019 and the programme reflects that of her first public appearance in the role. Marin's advocacy of Hindemith's music is rooted in her days as a violin student and her subsequent period of tutelage under Leonard Bernstein. The educational projects she initiated during her time with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra also feature in the broadcast."

Violinist Tianwa Yang marks her fifteenth year as one of Naxos’ leading artists with a new album featuring Prokofiev’s two violin concertos. The works’ stylistic contrasts reflect the fact that they were written some twenty years apart, but they receive the same scrupulous attention to technical and musical details that hallmark every one of Tianwa’s performances. Little wonder that they consistently attract accolades and awards. Fellow Naxos artist Jun Märkl conducts the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Raymond Bisha presents.

An introduction to the Symphonies and Dances of composer Malcolm Arnold featuring conductor Andrew Penny who recorded all these works for Naxos. Arnolds orchestral works are a study in contrasts, from his optimistic and tuneful dance suites to his deeply personal symphonies.

Raymond Bisha presents an overview of Boris Giltburg’s project to learn and record all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, which are now released in a 9-CD box set edition following their inception as critically acclaimed digital releases. The recordings reflect only one facet of Giltburg’s gem of an undertaking, in that performances were also filmed and subsequently fleshed out by his extended and informative notes that accompany the albums. Giltburg’s personal exploration and Beethoven’s panoply of expression unite in a cycle that runs the full gamut of human emotion.

Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was a brilliant swordsman, athlete, violin virtuoso and gifted composer, with a claim to being the most talented figure in an age of remarkable individuals. He was an early and important exponent of the hybrid symphonie concertante, a genre that draws on both the symphony and concerto traditions. In this podcast Raymond Bisha talks with Dr Allan Badley, co-founder of Artaria Editions, the music publishing house that has created performance editions for hundreds of previously unpublished 18th-century works, many of which have been recorded for Naxos.

Lithuanian composer Jurgis Karnavičius was born in 1884, and became one of the early classical music leaders in his country. His 3rd and 4th string quartets were composed and first performed in the 1920's, and then ignored for decades. This podcast, and the new recording by the Vilnius String Quartet show why Karnavičius deserves to be remembered.

Significantly influenced by his experience of playing in some of the earliest Soviet jazz bands, Nikolai Kapustin trained as a pianist at the Moscow Conservatory but subsequently devoted himself to composition. His output includes many works for piano, two of which are featured on this new album — the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, along with his Chamber Symphony, Op. 57. Raymond Bisha introduces both the music and the propulsive energy of Frank Dupree who appears variously as piano soloist and conductor throughout the program.

Raymond Bisha prefaces his latest podcast with this introduction: “Heitor Villa-Lobos, the prolific Brazilian composer of some 2,000 works, conductor, cellist, guitarist and music educationalist, wrote his three violin sonatas between 1912 and 1920. When he wrote the first sonata, he was still a struggling young composer trying to make a name for himself, while playing all kinds of gigs to pay the bills. By the time he wrote the third sonata in 1920, he was a much more assured composer, and well on his way to international fame and success.”

French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) is remembered as someone who could spin melodies as easily as he breathed. Naxos is marking the centenary of his death with a 3-CD box set that comprises all his symphonies and a sequence of atmospheric and dramatic symphonic poems, including Phaéton and the ever-popular Danse macabre. Raymond Bisha presents an overview of these recordings by the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marc Soustrot, a noted French music specialist.

With multiple GRAMMY nominations and wide critical acclaim to her credit, Joan Tower’s latest album in the Naxos American Classics series demonstrates why she is so often performed, and why she is such a respected person among American composers. Raymond Bisha presents the programme on her new release that comprises four world premiere recordings. Soloists Dame Evelyn Glennie (percussion) and Blair McMillen (piano) feature alongside David Alan Miller and the Albany Symphony Orchestra.

Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy ran one of the finest salons in pre-revolution Paris. She was well educated and well connected, with a circle of friends that ran from Luigi Boccherini to Benjamin Franklin. She was also a fine composer. Because of the social norms of the day, however, her role within Parisian culture was restricted, and none of her music was published during her lifetime. Raymond Bisha presents the world premiere recordings of her piano sonatas by Nicolas Horvath.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871) was one of the most famous composers of the 19th century. Working with his lifelong collaborator, the renowned dramatist and librettist Eugéne Scribe, he gave definitive form to the uniquely French genres of grand historical opera (La Muette de Portici) and opéra-comique (Fra Diavolo). His overtures were famous all over the world, as much for their engaging titles (The Bronze Horse, The Black Domino, The Crown Diamonds) as for their dancing elegance and fluent melodies. Raymond Bisha introduces a new programme of overtures and entr’actes from Auber’s stage works conducted by Dario Salvi, a specialist in the restoration and performance of rare works, in particular those of Meyerbeer and Auber.

Raymond Bisha introduces Spanish guitarist Mabel Millán in her debut album for Naxos. A fast-rising star in the guitar world, she has already appeared at international festivals and prestigious Spanish venues, and gained numerous awards at international competitions. Her combination of nuanced musicality and technical ease illuminate her programme, from the Andalusian rhythms and atmosphere of Turina and Malats and the Romantic expressiveness and national colours of Ponce and Mertz, to the lyrical beauty and dramatic virtuosity of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Capriccio diabolico.

In this podcast, Raymond Bisha takes us on a journey across South America, making musical stops in the countries of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Colombia. The Inca Trails that connected these lands and their people produced a sharing of ideas and cultures: ancient traditions of indigenous sounds and rhythms fused with cultural influences of European colonisers. The composers of the works on this new album — a number of which are receiving their first commercial recording — were all inspired by this musical legacy, by the people of their homeland, and by the land itself.

Raymond Bisha’s latest podcast finds him in conversation with world-renowned guitarist and lutenist Richard Savino who introduces his debut recording for Naxos that also features his renowned ensemble El Mundo. The focus of the album is a programme compiled from the remarkably fine music held in the archive of Guatemala City Cathedral, works that reflect the essence of Spanish colonies in Central and South America as wellsprings of cultural activity throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. While these recordings are founded on detailed research, El Mundo’s strong affinity with the stylistic features of this largely unknown repertoire ensures that their performances step well beyond any academic constraints to connect with the still living spirit of its original creators and audiences.

Described as having ‘natural genius’, John Abraham Fisher was a significant figure in London during the second half of the 18th century. A virtuoso violinist, he also wrote admired stage works for the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. His orchestral works are largely forgotten today, but his symphonies display a surprising awareness of contemporary continental trends in their use of dynamic variations, revealing the influence of the Mannheim School. Raymond Bisha introduces a selection of his symphonies that possess a richness of colour, contrast and surprise, typical of Fisher’s expanding Classical style.

Described as having ‘natural genius’, John Abraham Fisher was a significant figure in London during the second half of the 18th century. A virtuoso violinist, he also wrote admired stage works for the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. His orchestral works are largely forgotten today, but his symphonies display a surprising awareness of contemporary continental trends in their use of dynamic variations, revealing the influence of the Mannheim School. Raymond Bisha introduces a selection of his symphonies that possess a richness of colour, contrast and surprise, typical of Fisher’s expanding Classical style.

Aram Il’yich Khachaturian once described how he “grew up in an atmosphere rich in folk music, popular festivals, rites joyous and sad, events in the lives of people always accompanied by music… deeply engraved in my memory, that determined my musical thinking.” He remains the most renowned of 20th-century Armenian composers, whose unmistakable style came with an urge to invent new forms that reconciled Western practice with Eastern idiom. Raymond Bisha introduces a new album of his piano works performed by Maltese pianist Charlene Farrugia. Her programme comprises Khachaturian’s 2 Children’s Albums and the 7 Recitatives and Fugues.

Raymond Bisha introduces a new album of choral transcriptions by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) that forms part of Naxos’ Music of Brazil series. The programme represents part of Villa-Lobos’ efforts to create a body of music education resources, following his invitation in 1932 to set up an ambitious programme in the public school system in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The result was an amazing body of music for the benefit of both students and teachers, with choral music playing a central role. These choral transcriptions of classical favourites by composers that include J. S. Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Schubert and Mendelssohn enabled them to reach a far wider audience than in their original setting.

Raymond Bisha introduces a new album of orchestral works by Žibouklé Martinaityté (b. 1973). Born in Lithuania and now based in New York City, she was awarded both a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Lithuanian Government Award in 2020. The four works on the programme were written between 2013 and 2019 and employ a fascinating use of orchestral colour, leading New York’s classical music radio station WQXR to describe her as “a textural magician.”

Raymond Bisha introduces a new album of 21st-century mallet percussion concertos performed by virtuoso percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong under Jean Thorel. The works by Alexis Alrich and Karl Jenkins put the marimba in the solo spotlight, while Ned Rorem’s 7-movement Mallet Concerto — written in 2003 and presented here in its world premiere recording — features Dame Evelyn in dynamic displays on both marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel and xylophone.

Raymond Bisha introduces a programme of orchestral music by the Pulitzer and Erasmus Prize-winning American composer John Adams. The two works on this new album from the Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero demonstrate why Adams is one of today’s most widely performed and recorded composers. Adams describes My Father Knew Charles Ives as “an homage and encomium to a composer whose influence on me has been huge”, while Harmonielehre expands his trademark minimalist style, retaining its energetic pulse but embracing rich tonal resources of the past.

Choral music formed an important part of Anton Bruckner’s output throughout his career, even though the genre was widely underappreciated by a public more inclined to large-scale symphonic and operatic works. Although the big-boned structure of such music also made its presence felt in Church masses and oratorios, there was always a need for smaller sacred choral works, not only because of listeners’ preferences but also because of pragmatic performance considerations. Raymond Bisha introduces a programme of Bruckner’s Latin motets that were composed to meet these demands, performed by the renowned Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Kļava.

Czech composer Vitězslav Novák (1870-1949), who was one of Dvořák’s composition students, rose to prominence with a series of increasingly ambitious orchestral works that fused elements of folk music, impressionism and late-Romanticism. Raymond Bisha introduces Vol. 1 of his orchestral works performed by Marek Štilec and the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra. The programme pairs the heady intensity of Toman and the Wood Nymph with the subtle folk song undertones of the South Bohemian Suite.

Raymond Bisha discusses a release of music by the American composer Bernard Herrmann with Joseph Horowitz, co-founder of PostClassical Ensemble, a group dedicated to stepping across normal repertoire boundaries. The album’s programme showcases Herrmann’s talents not only as a composer of film scores, but also as a consummate provider of music for the forgotten genre of radio plays, and a composer of consequence in his legacy of concert works.

Once in a while you hear such incredibly beautiful music for the first time that you just can’t understand why it has remained under wraps for so long. The Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 by the Italian-born composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco are a case in point. Originally championed in the 1920s and 30s by no less an artist that Jascha Heifetz, they now have a 21st-century advocate in the brilliant Beijing-born violinist Tianwa Yang. Raymond Bisha introduces us to these hugely attractive concertos that bear the colourful and lyrical hallmarks of a prolific composer and seasoned writer of film scores.

Raymond Bisha introduces a new release of Baroque violin sonatas by 18th-century Italian violinists trained in the tradition of Arcangelo Corelli, spreading his elegant, expressive and virtuosic style on their travels throughout Europe. Giovanni Mossi’s sonatas retain Corelli’s dramatic contrasts and structure, while Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli also incorporates features found in music by Vivaldi. Both composers’ works combine formal elegance with wild abandon, lyrical charm and virtuosity alongside plenty of room for improvisation from acclaimed soloist Augusta McKay Lodge.

Raymond Bisha introduces recordings of J. S. Bach’s cello suites, transcribed for guitar and performed by Jeffrey McFadden. Bach himself made arrangements of other composers’ works, as well his own, recycling them for new uses, a practice that continues with these two new volumes. Pablo Casals (1876–1973), the eminent cellist who was pivotal in resurrecting the practice of giving complete performances of the original suites, summed up their importance: “They are the very essence of Bach; and Bach is the very essence of music.”

Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds (b. 1977) has demonstrated his versatility by writing in a variety of genres, from orchestral and film scores to electronic and multi-media works. Choral music, however, features in much of what he does. The richness of texture and variety of colour in his music for choirs reflects his practice of dividing the vocal parts into as many as sixteen parts. This complexity in construction is counterbalanced, however, by the simplicity and beauty of the music’s expressivity. Raymond Bisha introduces Translations, an album of Ešenvalds’ music released in March 2020 and performed by the Portland State Chamber Choir under their conductor Ethan Sperry.

No lover of classical music from the Romantic period should miss an opportunity to become acquainted with the music of Hans Rott, a little known composer (even in his day), but one who made a significant impact before his untimely death at the age of 25. Improbable though it may seem, it’s likely that not a single one of Rott’s works was performed in public during his lifetime. When Gustav Mahler is on record as having said that “It simply cannot be gauged what music has lost with him”, people can be confident that there are treats in store with the Capriccio label’s new edition of his orchestral works, a welcome opportunity to help correct Rott’s neglect and experience exactly what Mahler was referring to. Raymond Bisha presents.

Peter Breiner is one of the world’s most performed composer/arranger/conductors with record sales in the millions and over 200 CD titles to his credit. Slovak Dances, Naughty and Sad, the latest of his many releases for Naxos, consolidates his outstanding reputation as an arranger. It features Breiner’s typically colourful orchestrations that include a wide variety of tuned and untuned percussion. It’s also an extraordinary mix of world music, improvisation and symphonic composition, enhanced by the involvement of acclaimed specialist soloists such as multi-instrumentalist Marian Friedl and virtuoso accordionist Boris Lenko. This really is a hit not to be missed. Raymond Bisha is your host.

Considering the size of the wind band industry in the United States, the occasion of an established classical composer writing for the medium comes as a rare but highly welcome treat. Raymond Bisha introduces a programme of wind band music by Kenneth Fuchs, during which the American composer describes the progression of his experience and opportunities, from high school through college, and acknowledges the people who inspired and guided him along the way.

Alexander Kastalsky’s Requiem for Fallen Brothers was written between 1914 and 1917, during World War I, a conflict that killed more than 20 million people and injured even more. Kastalsky achieved poignancy in his memorial by using melodies and texts from many of the countries involved in the war — Russia, Serbia, Italy, England, Japan, India and even the United States. By combining all these sources he created a beautiful, moving and truly global Requiem for those who lost their lives, and a postscript reminding us that suffering caused by war is universal. Raymond Bisha introduces a new recording of the work in which Leonard Slatkin directs an impressive line-up of mass choral and orchestral forces.

Raymond Bisha introduces a selection from the rich and varied catalogue of chamber works that Beethoven wrote throughout his life. It includes the ‘Archduke’ piano trio, examples of his violin and cello sonatas, and extracts from both his Octet for Wind Instruments and the Septet in E flat major, Op. 20, a work so popular that Beethoven himself arranged it in a trio version, no doubt to make it more accessible to a wider public eager to perform it. Beethoven wrote 16 string quartets over a period of 25 years, one of his greatest contributions to music that continuously changed and challenged what was thought possible in the medium, including the Gross Fuge, an intensely powerful work that Stravinsky declared “will be contemporary for ever.”

Raymond Bisha introduces a new release of orchestral music by American composer Christopher Rouse, who died in September 2019. It’s a fitting tribute to one who led the revitalisation of contemporary orchestral music with works that ranged from intensely active to wonderfully lyrical. As both a Pullitzer Prize and GRAMMY Award winner, his personal mission “to be of use: to sing you a song, to paint you a picture, to tell you a story” has resonated with audiences all over the world. The engaging programme on this release is brilliantly performed by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and conductor Giancarlo Guerrero. Rouse’s Concerto for Orchestra is a ‘hyper-concerto’ that gives each player a chance to shine, while the mournful intimacy and passion of Supplica unfolds somewhat like the slow movement of a Bruckner or Mahler symphony. His Fifth Symphony blurs the lines between tradition and modernity and was described as “brilliant, exciting and at times hauntingly beautiful” by The Dallas Morning News.

Raymond Bisha introduces Johan Smith, winner of the 2019 Guitar Foundation of America Competition, in a recital that the Swiss artist has described as his dream programme: “It’s an exceptional album in many ways: the music is engaging, the playing is outstanding, and the recorded sound is first-rate. And the artist himself is uniquely intriguing, having some of his roots in the heavy metal band Stortregn, both as a founder member and its graphic designer.”

Raymond Bisha introduces a programme of Beethoven’s music for solo piano that contains some of his most visionary, groundbreaking and memorable works. Drawn from the Complete Edition boxed set (Naxos 8.500250), the selected movements from Beethoven’s best-known piano sonatas illustrate his dynamism as a composer/pianist, his gift for flowing melodic beauty, and the range of his emotional variance. The smaller pieces highlight the composer’s command of variation form and, in the case of the Rondo a capriccio in G major (Rage over a Lost Penny), his scintillating powers of bravura wit.

Raymond Bisha introduces a new release from Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat of French piano rarities by Boulez, Debussy, Messiaen and Ravel: “I heard Ralph play this same repertoire at a concert in Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago, and it was amazing. Ralph says his aim is to convince people of the ‘immense beauty and diversity of contemporary music’. Both on this album, and when you hear him live, the music simply springs to life.” The programme includes Boulez’s hitherto unknown student work, Prélude, Toccata et Scherzo. Exclusive permission to play and record the piece for Naxos was granted by the heirs of Pierre Boulez and the Sacher Foundation in Basel.

Raymond Bisha introduces Michael Daugherty’s This Land Sings: Inspired by the Life and Times of Woody Guthrie. The work celebrates The Dust Bowl Troubadour’s folk songs of love, wandering and social justice through Daugherty’s own original songs and instrumental music. These were composed after he drove for several weeks along the desolate, barren and dusty back roads of Texas and Oklahoma, where Woody once roamed, while listening to everything that he recorded during his brief lifetime. Woody Guthrie was a folk movement figurehead, continuing as a major influence on numerous internationally successful artists with recordings that have been re-released innumerable times, generating an unflagging interest in anything attached to his name.

Raymond Bisha introduces the latest release in the Naxos Beethoven anniversary digital album series. Ranging from a solo piano to the huge resources required for his final symphony, the programme comprises ten works that define the last ten years of Beethoven’s creative life, exemplifying his ever more technically challenging pieces, their novel structures, and the frequent incorporation of contrapuntal music that had been a hallmark of giants of the Baroque period.

Join Raymond Bisha in a podcast of artistic discovery as he unveils yet another American classic—Randall Thompson’s Requiem. Reckoned by many to be his most ambitious work, the composer himself considered it to be his masterpiece, yet it has languished for decades on the periphery of the choral performance repertoire. This world premiere recording from Naxos serves notice that the work’s rehabilitation is overdue, with an outstanding performance by the Philadelphia Singers directed by David Hayes setting the bar high.

Beethoven’s concertos enjoy the spotlight in this podcast from Raymond Bisha. It serves as a companion resource to the latest digital album in our series marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The technical and musical demands Beethoven makes of his concerto soloists shine centre-stage in this compilation of wonderful performances of movements from his five piano concertos, his violin concerto, and the triple concerto for violin, cello and piano. The line-up of soloists is world-class; and there’s the bonus of several other Beethoven works written in concertante form that are generally less well-known.

Raymond Bisha introduces Richard Danielpour’s oratorio The Passion of Yeshua, a 105-minute work for large chorus, six soloists and orchestra that takes the listener back to Jesus’ final day on earth, removing as much as possible the accretions of history since that moment in an attempt to provide a fuller understanding of the connection of Jesus of Nazareth to the Jewish tradition. It does this through both the Hebrew and English languages. Danielpour’s gift for vocal writing and astonishing orchestral colour makes this a highly significant work in the enduring oratorio tradition, described as “a classic for all time” by conductor JoAnn Falletta.

Raymond Bisha presents an overview of works written by Beethoven during his middle years period. It’s a companion resource to the latest release in Naxos’ monthly digital album series featuring the music of Beethoven in this 250th anniversary year of his birth. February’s compilation album (9.30206) presents a programme of works written between 1802 and 1815, those dates marked respectively by performances of his ‘Kreutzer’ Violin Sonata and his Fourth Cello Sonata by major Naxos artists violinist Takako Nishizaki and cellist Maria Kliegel. Fine examples of his choral, chamber, concerto and symphonic works make up the rest of this attractive compilation.

The guest host of this podcast is Ashley Jackson. She is an accomplished musician, who has studied the music of both Margaret Bonds and Florence Price, who composed and worked during the civil rights movement in the United States. In this podcast, Dr. Jackson gives us both an historical and a personal perspective on how the struggles of these composers, and those of her grandmother, helped make possible what she does today.