César Guerra-Peixe was one of the most versatile Brazilian musicians of the 20th century, gaining a particular mastery of orchestration and creating his own inimitable sound through extensive work in radio, television and cinema. The toe-tapping dance rhythms and lyrical expressiveness in his two Symphonic Suites were inspired by research into Brazilian folk traditions, further enhanced by a broad range of vibrantly eloquent global influences. The lighthearted Roda de Amigos mischievously caricatures Guerra-Peixe’s musical circle of friends and their various woodwind instruments.

INCLUDES WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

This album presents eight of the most recent works by Peter Boyer, one of the leading American orchestral composers of his generation. Balance of Power was commissioned for the 95th birthday of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, while Fanfare for Tomorrow was composed for the inauguration of President Joe Biden in 2021. Each of these pieces displays Boyer’s vivid soundscapes and tuneful American sensibilities, from the cinematic sweep of Rolling River to Radiance, composed especially for this album. Boyer’s GRAMMY-nominated Ellis Island: The Dream of America (8.559246) has received over 250 performances and was televised by PBS.

INCLUDES WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

The emergence of the cello as a solo instrument at the beginning of the 19th century encouraged composers to explore its melodic and sonorous potential, with compositions for two or more cellos becoming increasingly popular. Bernhard Romberg and Anton Kraft both had personal connections to Beethoven – their works offer inventive timbres, intimacy and substantial virtuosity. The world premiere recording of the sparkling Concertino by Kraft’s son Nikolaus completes an album of unique gems, influenced by Beethoven and Haydn, which helped to usher in the golden age of the cello.

Frank Sinatra dubbed Robert Farnon ‘The Guv’nor’ in 1962 when the two men first came together in London to work on an album. This summed up Farnon’s reputation as being synonymous with the highest standards of craftsmanship across the widest spectrum of music-making, earning him four Ivor Novello awards and the Order of Canada. His fame was established with BBC wartime radio broadcasts and the ubiquitous Portrait of a Flirt. Further success came with TV themes such as the stirring Colditz March and the impressionistic beauty of such gems as À la claire fontaine. The performances on this acclaimed recording are given with ‘warmth, polish and a remarkable naturalness of idiomatic feeling’ (The Penguin Guide).

Mieczysław Weinberg’s powerful Holocaust drama Die Passagierin channels his and his family’s ordeals of wartime and Soviet persecution, applying them musically to Zofia Posmysz’s autobiographical novel. The score was praised by Shostakovich for its ‘beauty and greatness’, with a narrative that unfolds on an ocean liner bound for Brazil on which a former Auschwitz guard and one of her Polish prisoners confront impossible moral conflict and harrowing flashbacks in music that is sparse, dark, sardonic and intermittently tender. This acclaimed Oper Graz production draws us movingly into the raw unimaginable madness of this imperishable moment in history.

Puccini once said, ‘there is more music in Perosi’s head than in mine and Mascagni’s put together’. Priest-composer Lorenzo Perosi achieved international celebrity by the late 1890s for his sacred music, and he also composed a fine selection of chamber works that are little known today. Perosi’s Piano Quintets have a fresh and spontaneous feel, even though they were written while he grieved the loss of his brother. Combining bold rhythms and solemn spiritual depth, these works along with the Second String Trio are all respectful of tradition while representing an exploration of new paths unique in Italian music of the time.

INCLUDES WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

Kemal Belevi’s works for the guitar, either solo or in combination, as heard on this album, exude the colour and allure of the eastern Mediterranean. Without alluding to any specific tunes, he evokes Cypriot folk music in Cypriana, while the linked Four Sketches show his variety in the work’s bracing modernity. Belevi is at heart a romantic and a melodist of touching beauty as can be heard in Catch 22 and in the subtle colour study Clouds. The poignant Suite Chypre is heard in this special arrangement made for Silvia and Livio Grasso.

Like many Catalan musicians of his time, Antonio Soler received initial training as a chorister before his excellence as an organist ensured high appointment at the Escorial, Spain’s royal palace. Here he absorbed the influence of Domenico Scarlatti, and the keyboard sonatas Soler composed remain his most lasting contribution to musical history. The three sonatas in this volume reflect his awareness of trends in Viennese music and are notable for their vivid pastoral elements, refined delicacy and sizzling virtuosic demands.

INCLUDES WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

This album of contemporary organ repertoire features fascinating works that display a wide array of influences. Barry Jordan’s Praise Song, heard here its 2018 revision, draws on modern worship songs and African drumming rhythms, an element that also suffuses part of Thierry Escaich’s Évocation II, a work of electrifying intensity and vibrant colour. Arvo Pärt’s starkly beautiful Annum per annum is featured alongside Theo Brandmüller’s last work Sternenklänge. Dialogue vers les étoiles by Christian von Blohn – a student of Brandmüller – acts as a moving posthumous dialogue with his teacher.

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

Internationally acclaimed composer William McClelland has written a wide variety of music in many styles and forms, but the works in this program have all been inspired by poetry. The choral works evoke the atmosphere of time and place in settings of very early texts, including Catullus’ movingly elegiac lament for his lost brother, These Last Gifts, an experience shared by the composer. The short pieces in Five for Piano all evoke specific poems and, composed over several decades, McClelland’s songs are primarily settings of poetry by American writers that express a mystical, symbolic or visionary view on nature.