The excellent Vagn Holmboe series from Dacapo continues with this superb recording of three concertos. Performances are by the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Dima Slobodeniouk with soloists Erik Heide and Lars Anders Tomter, violin and viola respectively. By my count,...

A champion of the rich musical heritage of Denmark, the Dacapo label frequently surprises music lovers with unheard-of treasures. This time they do so with the chamber music for violin and piano of Knudåge Riisager. This is an enjoyable and varied hour of music performed by violinist Johannes...

The cover of this new Delta Classics recording of the violin sonatas and sonatinas by Russian composer Nikolai Rakov (1908-1990) declares “World Premiere Recording”, but it doesn’t indicate which piece or pieces are premieres. After a little digging around, it looks like the...

Music of the Dutch pianist and composer Géza Frid is given world premiere recordings on this new Coviello Classics CD containing his four string quartets. The music was written over a span of thirty years, the first in 1926 and the fourth, 1956. Frid’s musical roots clearly lie in his...

Leevi Madetoja’s Kullervo, Op. 15 opens with a sforzando by strings and timpani followed by a loud, sustained tremolo and timpani roll. Horns enter in unison with a commanding call, trading back and forth, then growing softer, fainter, receding into the distance until the music has all...

I have been listening to and enjoying this CD at intervals over the past several months. At some point, being so handily close by, it became my touchstone in the assessment of other choral albums that came my way. Of those that had to stand in comparison, few made the cut. The performances by...

Reinhold Glière (1875-1956) is famously known to cellists for his Cello Concerto Op. 87, written in 1945-46 and premiered by nineteen year old Mstislav Rostropovich. Music for cello holds an important place in other areas of Glière’s output, his chamber music for example. While he is best...

Listeners coming to the orchestral music of Ludvig Jensen for the first time will be completely taken aback by the quality of this little known Norwegian composer’s music. All of the tools of the romantic composer’s trade are evident in abundance, and cpo has given us over two hours of his...

The magic of this music is how naturally the composer folds unrelated musical genres into his own unique sound world. Suggestions and moods of Jazz, blues, classical (impressionism to be most accurate) and Brazilian folk music are nuanced together so successfully that the result is absolutely...

In the deadlock of a continuing national-romanticism, Hilding Rosenberg (1892 – 1985) emerged as the “father of Swedish modernity”, though rather more infamously than famously due to the low regard for atonal music in Sweden at the time. A 20th century Swedish composer studying music in...

Toccata Classics has taken on the vital role of putting to disc piano music of the 20th century that is either relatively or completely unknown. The results have been very rewarding. Albums from the recent past have given us keyboard music of Arthur Farwell, Riccardo Malipiero, Leo Ornstein,...

This album of the Wolf-Ferrari violin concerto and four orchestral highlights from his operas is absolutely wonderful! The concerto by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876 – 194 and the story of child prodigy violinist Guila Bustabo are completely intertwined, at least they will be for you once you...