Naxos Spanish Classics

8.570443 VILLA-ROJO: Concierto plateresco
Jesús Villa-Rojo is one of the most dynamic figures on the Spanish music scene
today. Almost all Villa-Rojo's works of the last twenty years or more feature
certain constants originating from Spanish musical tradition, some melodic or modal,
others based on specific intervals or colours. In the Concierto plateresco, he
filters these through the prism of the Renaissance, a high-point in Spanish cultural
and artistic history. Written in 2004 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the
Reina Sofía Chamber Orchestra, the sparkling Serenata too has points of reference in
musical history, both past and present. Concierto 2, for cello - here given in its
revised version, with string orchestra - is a key work in Villa-Rojo's compositional
career. Dating from 1983, the work is notable for its instrumental virtuosity and
pent-up dramatic tension.

Hansjörg Schellenberger, oboe; Asier Polo, cello; Orquesta de Cámara Reina Sofía;
Nicolás Chumachenco

Marco Polo

8.225287 Johann STRAUSS I: Edition, Vol. 11
In a career that spanned a period from the 1820s until his death in 1849, the older
Johann Strauss established an unrivalled position for himself among composers and
performers of dance music in Vienna. His own achievements were continued by his
three sons, ensuring the name of Strauss was inextricably identified with the
musical pleasures of nineteenth-century Vienna. Several of the works on this
recording were written during Strauss' 1837-1838 fourteen-month tour of Western
Europe with his orchestra. They include his celebrated Paris Waltz, which quotes the
revolutionary Marseillaise, still unmistakeable in waltz rhythm and banned in
Strauss' own country, and Homage to Queen Victoria of England, which concludes with
God Save the Queen played in waltz rhythm, and was performed at the opening state
ball at Buckingham Palace on the occasion of the Queen's accession to the throne.
Slovak Sinfonietta Z?ilina, Christian Pollack

Naxos Historical

8.111274 KLEMPERER: Brahms / Wagner
If 'slow tempos' were a significant characteristic of Klemperer's final years as a
conductor, in his earlier days, as demonstrated on these 1927-1928 recordings, he
could set fizzing tempos, galvanising his performers with electric gestures. Above
all, however, Klemperer was a master structuralist, always focussed on the music,
its construction and direction. His recording of the Brahms Symphony No. 1, made
over seven months, is notable not only for athletic vitality but for ecstatic
singing lines and subtle integration of light and shade. The account of the Prelude
to Act I of Tristan und Isolde is remarkably rapt while that of Siegfried Idyll is
intimate and gentle.

Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner

8.111320-21 VERDI: Otello
Arturo Toscanini was the second cellist in the orchestra of La Scala, Milan, for the
triumphant first performance of Verdi's Otello on 5th February 1887. Sixty years
later he led a radio broadcast of Otello spread over two evenings that is considered
by many to be the most successful of his opera recordings for NBC. Described by one
of Toscanini's biographers, Joseph Horowitz, as 'the one that comes closest to
recapturing Toscanini's revolutionary impact in the pit', this December 1947
recording is remarkable for Toscanini's dramatic grasp of Shakespeare's timeless
tragedy, and his scrupulous observation of Verdi's most detailed dynamic markings.

NBC Symphony Orchestra and Choruses, Arturo Toscanini

8.111092 SEGOVIA 6: American Recordings, Vol. 4
Volume 4 of Segovia's 1950s American recordings is devoted in the main to his
arrangements of music composed between 1535 and 1750. Although today it is customary
to play this repertoire on reproductions of instruments authentically modelled on
concepts of musicological research, Segovia preferred the 20th century guitar to all
other instruments as an expressive medium. To his interpretations of the 16th
century works of Milan, Narváez, Mudarra and Dowland, as well as the Baroque guitar
of Robert de Visée and transcriptions from Scarlatti or Rameau, Segovia brings the
same application of colour, variety of dynamics and rhythmic freedom as he applied
to romantic pieces. This full-blooded approach to early music was greatly
appreciated during his lifetime and often provided one of the few opportunities for
the general public to become acquainted with this area of the repertoire.