Now that, in Europe at least, EMI's licensing rights have expired and they have fallen into public domain, Naxos has issued them for sale in Europe (but, obviously, available on the Internet for anyone in the United States, thus pointing out the futility of current copyright laws). There are two important aspects of these issues. One is Naxos's low price. The second is the transfer work of Mark Obert-Thorn.

I have compared these extensively with a variety of EMI CD releases—and with original LP releases as well. ...What all of this demonstrates is that the single most important technical component in reissuing old recordings is a good ear! There is a fullness, richness, to the sound here that EMI has missed in virtually all of its attempts. These transfers seem a bit brighter. ...There is no question in my mind, there is a presence and immediacy to the sound on these Naxos issues that simply is lacking in the EMI CDs. (The one sacrifice you'll make is the omission of a libretto.)

Naxos also had to leave out the scene that opens the fourth act of Forza. ...But in its place, Naxos has given us the complete 53-minute RCA highlight album of Forza issued in the mid 1950s by RCA, but compiled from a number of sources between 1950 and 1955. Featuring Milanov, Peerce, Warren, and Moscona, it is yet another reminder of the glory days of Verdi singing that were the 1950s. . .Listening to these three recordings over the past month has been an unalloyed pleasure.

Callas is of course the central reason for these reissues, the one common thread to all three. In 1954-56 she was still in her vocal prime. . .The other singers also represented, for the most part, operatic greatness. I had forgotten just how beautiful Di Stefano's Riccardo was—I've been bathing in his glorious sound. I'm not going to go into details here, because these recordings have stayed in the marketplace for a half century and are very well known to collectors. If you don't know them, now is the time. If you do, the Naxos reissues are worth investing in. If you have an EMI release, you can replace it and keep the libretto. It is recordings like these for which the record industry exists. . .Each of these three recordings stands alongside the best ever made of these operas, and each belongs in any serious opera collection.

. . .The first piece we hear, Le retour de Londres, a "Grand Rondeau brill ant" of 1833 is, indeed, a light work full of virtuoso devices (all of which seem to be at Hinterhuber's beck and call). . .It is interesting to note that one of Hinterhuber's teachers was Lazar Berman, and some of that Russian giant's dexterity and huge tonal diversity has rubbed off on his pupil.

The Mozartian charms of the F-Major Variations (1820) sound perhaps a little too shallow after the trials and tribulations of the Oberon work, specially given its duration of 17:07, but are nonetheless delightful in their own right. The piece ends calmly, almost (given the glitter that precedes it) anticlimactically. Yet it cannot be denied that it is good to hear the piece.

I have only come across Hinterhuber on one other occasion, a Naxos disc of Ries Piano Concertos (8.557638, positively reviewed in Fanfare 29:6 by Michael Carter, and by myself elsewhere). I do hope Naxos keeps on tapping into his easy virtuosity, so perfectly suited to this repertoire. Uwe Grodd accompanies attentively.

Slatkin's performances with the BBC Concert Orchestra are competitive with everyone else's, and Naxos has provided him with rich sound…One thing not found on most Anderson collections is his 1953 Piano Concerto. …The composer's family has released some hither-to-unrecorded music that will appear in this Naxos series. Exhaustive annotations make this package even more valuable…

A previous Naxos release [8.559224] contained Fuchs's Out of the Dark for French horn and orchestra, a sort of Pictures at an Exhibition in proto-concerto form. . .As always, Fuchs relies upon modem, somewhat eclectic styles and techniques to achieve results that fall upon the ears without protest.

United Artists was written in 2006 as a tribute to the London Symphony Orchestra. It's a busy and sometimes brassy fanfare type piece that highlights the various sections of the orchestra in a way that reminded me of Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, albeit in American jeans and T-shirt rather than a penguin suit. I should think it would make an effective overture to a pops concert or curtain raiser for theater event.

Quiet in the Land…lives up to its title, with beautifully scored parts for the mixed wind quintet ensemble…

Finally, we come to Fuch's concerto for French horn and orchestra. The work takes its title, Canticle to the Sun, from a hymn text originally composed by St. Francis of Assisi, circa 1225. Fuchs bases the concerto on a setting of the text to a tune found in the Geist/iche Kirchengesang, dated 1623. In 1906, Vaughan Williams harmonized the tune. …It's a masterfully crafted work, with a horn part that any horn-player would relish. Timothy Jones does himself and Fuchs proud. Nor should JoAnn Falletta's contribution to this enterprise be overlooked. As usual, she proves an adept leader who happens to be especially sympathetic to 20th-century American music.

1956) was entirely unknown to me prior to hearing this release. Judging from these works, it is dynamic, dramatic in both style and content, with harmonic clashes, yet still essentially tonal. United Artists, his tribute to the London Symphony Orchestra, is…a nice short piece that might someday fit into concerts of American music as a prelude or curtain raiser, though it is not terribly remarkable.

Quiet in the Land, an "Idyll" for mixed quintet, is both more abstract and more wide-ranging in mood and musical material. …At no point during its full 12-minute duration did I feel that this music was either redundant or losing focus or direction; it is an excellent work.

Canticle to the Sun, a concerto for French horn and orchestra, gives us, I think Fuchs at his most imaginative and colorful. I felt that it contained the very best elements of his music: color, lyricism, rhythmic accents, and dramatic interludes. The horn (played here by Timothy Jones) weaves a lyrical strand of melody based on a hymn tune—a tapestry of fantasy variations based on its simple triadic intervals and scale fragments. I absolutely loved this piece; next to Quiet in the Land, it was my favorite work on the entire CD…

The sound quality of each piece is clear, natural, and attractive. JoAnn Falletta is an excellent conductor, precise and energetic in each of the pieces she is involved in. Indeed, in a way I felt that it was precisely her absence in the third and fourth works that led to their dynamic and emotional "flatness." Highly recommended for the first, second, and fifth works, with reservations about the remaining two.

The actual melody is chipper, folk-like, and attractive, as you might assume such pieces to be, and mercifully presented without words. (The booklet doesn't even bother to give them, thank goodness.). ...The score calls for such unconventional assaults on the instrument as a right hand slap above the keyboard and a two hand slap under it, a few foot stomps as well as a shout and an occasional lengthy monotone whistle in the background. By the time you reach the end, your mind and emotions have been taken through a wringer. This is not a piece after which you listen to anything else for at least 10 to 15 minutes; better to allow your mind some time to absorb and process all of this musical information and achieve catharsis.

...pianist Ralph van Raat is certainly no slouch. He rips into Rzewski's mental maelstrom with the passion of a true believer, and at the end sweeps us up in this musical tornado of a piece. ...There are very few recordings that I would not only recommend highly but also suggest that they be part of your desert-island collection. This is one of them.

I've not heard them do this live, and regret it. This is the next best thing, though, and the back cover promises that this is the first disc of two for the complete set. If the follow-up is on the same level, this will be the preferred set for the foreseeable future. …While Carter may yet surprise us (he's only celebrating his 100th birthday this year, after all), the Fifth could be his valediction to the form, and it's appropriate to reflect on these works and their discography.

The First, from 1951, sounds more like a masterpiece with every passing year. It remains revolutionary in its capacity to maintain previously unimagined levels of counterpoint, largely through Carter's breakthroughs in control of rhythm and tempo. . .It's grand, intense, and noble—and also full of charm, wit, and energy. The First sounds like an engagement with the challenge of the late Beethoven quartets finally met square-on, and no matter how complex, it's never needlessly so.

. . .in the Fifth, Carter's humor and dramatic instincts come to the fore. It consists of six short movements, separated by an equal number of interludes. What makes the work dizzying is that in the interludes, ideas from the movements are tossed around almost at random, as a metaphor for the process of rehearsal. And you really hear the difference between the two sorts of music. . .It would seem obvious that now the Pacifica wins on repertoire alone, not to mention the budget Naxos price. Fortunately, theirs is also a model for the current state of quartet-playing. Never before have I heard the First rendered so naturally that every return of themes and motives is as obvious as in the standard repertoire. There is enormous energy, precision, and warmth in this version (the latter a characteristic that many people doubt Carter's music possesses; but I promise you, it's there, and you hear it here)…I can't wait to hear the sequel, in particular since the Fourth is the one work in the series that has never grabbed me, and I'm waiting to hear a version that finally proves me wrong…Sound is spacious but never too reverberant. A great release, which I can only hope is matched by the sequel.

Conductor Inkinen, who takes over the orchestra's music directorship from James Judd this year, is the latest in a remarkable line of young Finnish conductors making their mark on the musical world; this is his first Sibelius disc with his new orchestra, and it's a winner all around.

Not too many years ago, the repertoire recorded here was little known, with the exception of the "Festivo" from the first set of Scènes historiques. Now it is all available in multiple recordings—close to a dozen for the King Christian II music from 1898. ...Inkinen and his New Zealanders respond sympathetically to the character of this music, providing admirable readings that rank with the best: in the Scenes historiques, Gibson (Chandos) and Jarvi (BIS)—lofty company, indeed. ...Overall, though, even given the stiff competition, this is a first-rate disc. Naxos provides a full-sounding recording with an ideal balance between hall ambience and detail; English-only notes by Keith Anderson cover all the important bases. Let's look forward to more Sibelius from Inkinen—he's one to watch.

…Elin Manahan Thomas's pure, crystalline soprano soars…one is bathed in a delicate shower of silvery tone. …Iain Burnside is a marvelously sensitive pianist whose phrasing, pedaling, sense of drama and color are all outstanding. John Turner is one of the finest recorder-players I've heard in a long time; his tone is so golden that it sounds almost exactly like a traverse flute. I enjoyed Seascapes tremendously, but was less taken with the other works. Caveat emptor.

A similar disc, but with different contents and spotlighting Alessandro Amoretti and the Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia, was released on Marco Polo, later deleted and reissued as Naxos 8.570508. This disc from December of last year with Kevin Mallon and his Toronto compatriots is the second in the projected cycle, and holds rewarding interpretations that summon respect for the composer as well as admiration for the performers. With Mallon in charge, the music exudes a freshness that is a welcome surprise and that further commends these poised and erudite readings. Vigor, affection, and commitment abound here, and the music-lover unfamiliar with Cimarosa's music should take the first opportunity to pounce on this release!

This is a surprisingly small number to those who only think of the composer in terms of his wildly popular guitar concerto, the Concierto de Aranjuez, but Rodrigo didn't play the instrument and, though he greatly admired both classical and flamenco guitarists, it only occupied a small portion of his output.

This is a shame, though, because Rodrigo's pieces, like those of his composition teacher Paul Dukas, are not only well-crafted gems in a basically tonal style that sounds neither dated nor predictable, but also convincingly manage to blend classical, folk, and flamenco styles in a seamless fashion.

These pieces, each and every one of them a gem, are a perfect indication. …one can never grow tired of listening to them!

Happily, Jérémy Jouve is fully up to the demands of this music. He has not only the technique but also the proper spirit for them, which is probably even more important. Not a single moment in any of the various movements on this CD passes by without complete commitment to drama as well as detail. Indeed, one might actually overlook his extraordinary technique for all the dramatic commitment of his playing. Judicaël Perroy, who joins him in the performance of Tonadilla, is equally up to the task. …This is how classical guitar should be played. Of previously recorded versions of these works, the only ones in the same class were those by Angel Romero on a now out-of-print RCA album (Por los campos, Sonata giocosa, Three Spanish Pieces), and the sound quality of the Naxos album is actually sharper, more clearly defined. You go, Jérémy!

All active during the 20th century, their music may be completely Westernized with no obvious Japanese influence (like that of Abe and Ohzawa), or fuse ethno-musical characteristics with the Western avant-garde (like the better-known Mayuzumi). Occasionally, a truly great composer synthesizes his various influences into a uniquely individual voice (Takemitsu).

The case of Isotaro Sugata (1907-1952) provides a telling example of a talented musician in search of a style. His tale is worthy of Pirandello. So taken was he with the new works that he heard and studied, he virtually rewrote them. . .For lovers of 20th-century music, if only for a game of spot-the-influence, these are intriguing pieces. They are beautifully performed and recorded on this CD, making it another must-have in this compelling series.

His prolific and original œuvre illustrates the stylistic evolution from the high Baroque to the classicism of Haydn and Mozart. More than 60 extant concertos attest to Fasch's imaginative and resourceful instrumentation, especially remarkable in his writing for winds. Having languished so long in the shadow of Bach, Fasch now can be counted among Bach's more interesting German contemporaries.

This fascinating new Naxos release pairs an orchestral suite or Ouverture with what may be the first recording of Fasch's Passion setting (Mich von Stricke meiner Sunden) to a text by Brockes. They are presented in compelling and heartfelt performances by Hungarian ensembles and soloists under the direction of the conductor and musicologist Mary Terey-Smith. The sound of the Capella Savaria (an original-instruments ensemble established in 1981 in Szombathely, western Hungary) is unusually rich.

Less rigorously polyphonic than Bach's Passions, the power of Fasch's setting is achieved with smaller gestures and lighter textures. The beautifully blended and translucent sound of the Schola Cantorum Budapestiensis is gracefully supported throughout by Capella Savaria. . .Terey-Smith's fine ear for detail is everywhere evident, though never limiting the fluent pace and momentum of these beautiful scores.

This recording was made in Szombathely in October 2006. Balances are acute and the presence rich. Nigel Springthorpe provided the informative notes. Recommended.

He has earned eternal gratitude from flutists and music-lovers, and I include myself in both categories (before someone corrects me on this, not all flutists are music-lovers). Naxos should also be praised, since, besides these quartets, the label is releasing Ries's complete piano concertos, in excellent interpretations by Christopher Hinterhuber and the New Zealand Symphony orchestra under the baton of Uwe Grodd. Thus, slowly, Ries is finally occupying the place in music history (or at least in discography) that is rightly his. …A contemporary opinion about Ries's talents as a pianist, published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, could easily be applied to his art as a composer: "Ries showed a very poetic, expressive style, as well as unusual skill and sureness in the easy overcoming of the most difficult passages."

The flute quartets recorded here show a composer open to all sorts of influences, from the classical quartets of Haydn and Mozart to the lush Iberian music that was starting to be appreciated in the rest of Europe and would later become a fad. . .

To my taste, the whole style of interpretation seems a few decades old, with a very literal attitude towards the written page. But apart from these objections, this recording is still a valid introduction to a fascinating figure that deserves to be better known. It will be of interest to all flutists, and to the many lovers of the music of Beethoven's time.

The set of 11 Fantasy Waltzes, some 35 minutes in duration, deserves far more frequent hearings than it gets. They were inspired by a trip to Norway and a visit to Grieg's home, and one of them (the third) is an open homage to the Norwegian master. The range of moods encapsulated in this suite is very impressive, and while individual pieces can clearly be excerpted from it, the whole has a shape to it that makes it work as a cycle.

With Ashley Wass's completely involved performances (these are not mere dutiful run-throughs at all), this disc is a gem waiting to be discovered. Naxos's sound is clear and exceedingly natural—you feel that you and the piano are in the room together, and André Knowles's notes are very helpful. This is a truly lovely disc, and is highly recommended.

Like its predecessors, it is closely recorded, to an extent that inflates the size of the lute. And, as with the previous volumes, that is the only criticism I have come up with. North is a scholar as well as a wonderful lutenist. Here, he takes works that he believes came in some form from Dowland's hand, as in the Pavalla Doulant, and edits them to produce "another beautiful and serious work, obviously from the heart of the English John Dowland." I can't judge the scholarship, but this does seem like a beautiful and serious work, and we can be grateful to North not only for his playing, but also for the knowledge that allowed him to restore it to us. This series promises to be a rival for the complete lute works recorded by Paul O'Dette, which is my standard. When completed, it will also feature music O'Dette did not record.

My only problem concerns balance in the symphony's third movement (Eichendorffs "By a Lime Tree") where the baritone soloist is swamped by the orchestra towards the end. Drabowicz sings strongly, despite the tessitura sitting on the high side for him. (The CD is dedicated to the Polish baritone, who died in a car accident in 2007, exactly one year after the recording was made.) Tenor Minkiewicz easily negotiates his tricky lines in the Dies irae, and hits the right level of hysteria. All the soloists are excellent, and the Warsaw National Philharmonic under Wit provides solid support.

This CD is a must if you are collecting the series; the Eighth is more interesting and certainly more varied than the instrumental symphonies (with the exception of the First). The combination of early and late Penderecki is also intriguing—for their surprising points of similarity as much as for their contrast. Texts and translations are not provided, but are available on the Naxos Web site.

Robert Parsons (c. 1530-1572) sang at the Chapel Royal, his place being given to William Byrd at his death. He fell into the river Trent in January, a fate that so affected his confreres that they ceased to sing his music. Yet a great deal of it has somehow survived. I have over a dozen single pieces in recorded collections (the Ave Maria is the most duplicated), but this is the first full disc. . . .The responds and the canticle are first recordings except for "Credo quod redemptor" (28:5). The six-voice Latin Magnificat is the longest single piece here, part of a tradition of large-scale canticles that may be found in the Eton Choir Book. The three selections from the Responds for the Dead are also set in Latin, so the Great Service is the only Anglican music (sung in English) heard here.

The new group did well to make a place for themselves by offering something as offbeat as a composer's first dedicated CD. Fortunately, they are sympathetic to the music. The two main works (the longest one and the most popular one) frame the program. In between, the three Latin responds, polyphonic settings of texts found even now in the chant editions for the Office of the Dead, alternate among the parts of the Great Service. . .Altogether, this disc gives us a better grasp of Robert Parsons than the single selections ever did. It should be noted that Parsons has also been represented fairly well in recorded collections by secular music, several pieces recurring over the years. This disc should be mandatory for Tudor music collections.

With this Naxos release, the brilliant pianist John Salmon steps up to the plate with virtuosic performances of Kapustin's Piano Sonata No. 15 "Fantasia quasi Sonata", the Scherzo from the Piano Sonata No.2, op 54, and handfuls each of preludes, etudes, and bagatelles. In Salmon, who has recorded a substantial amount of Brubeck for Naxos, Kapustin may have met his ideal interpreter.

…Salmon approaches the manifold challenges of Kapustin's often-intricate keyboard-writing sympathetically, with a fierce technical arsenal at his disposal. His playing exhibits tremendous energy, textural clarity, and an unambiguous point of view. For my taste, microphones were placed a hair too near the piano, but this minor quibble did not prevent my listening to this disc repeatedly, with increasing pleasure. Salmon's own notes on the pieces are as personal as they are informative. Warmly recommended.

Mendelssohn is clearly another influence; conversely, the overblown Romanticism of Wagner was not to Godard's taste. The author of the notes to this present recording, Bruce R. Schueneman, observes that Godard's music "has sometimes been criticized for superficiality and 'over-hastiness,' and truly he composed at a prodigious pace, reaching op. 100 in 1886, while still in his thirties." This haste is apparent in the erratic quality of his orchestral writing in these two concertos. . .Godard might be said to over-favor the soloist with sweetly romantic tunes and virtuoso writing, yet Chloë Hanslip relishes them. The cadenza of Concerto No. 2's first movement presents challenges of double, triple, and quadruple stops as well as a glissando run. The lyrical beauty of the opening movement of Concerto No.2 is not sustained in the rather cloying Adagio central movement that tends to sag in the middle, but the whimsical, final Allegro non troppo is a bouncy delight.

Godard's Concerto romantique is a much earlier work and is cast in four movements. After a relatively short but dramatic opening movement, there is a graceful and poignant Adagio with passionate pleading; Hanslip is especially expressive here. The attractive third Canzonetta movement is relatively well known and, until the mid 20th century, was often published by itself or in collections or violin and piano arrangements. The work is rounded off with the high-spirited Allegro molto.

The four-movement Scenes poetiques is scored for orchestra only. This is charming, easy listening, winsomely crafted, light music.

That fact alone renders the almost total neglect of most of his 16 completed operettas inexplicable. ...The present recording attempts to restore one of his later operettas, Jabuka ("The Apple Festival"). ...It is certainly valuable then that a recording of this work, a significant entry in the Strauss canon, exists. . .

For one of Rossini's lesser-known works, La donna has the good fortune to be documented by several exceptional recordings. Add this new Naxos album to that list. Alberto Zedda conducts a taut, lively performance with a cast experienced in bel canto that sings with conviction, tossing off the runs and trills with ease, roulades everywhere, and punctuating the proceedings with some brilliant high notes. Right from the pastoral opening scene with the hunting horns in the distance, it's evident that this is an exciting evening in the theater. The proceedings are captured in excellent, clear sound before a silent audience (applause after certain numbers and at the ends of acts) and with performance noises (footsteps, scene shifting, etc.) nearly non-existent. This recording has all the benefits of a live performance with the sonic qualities of a studio-based endeavor.