From the opening measures of this Naxos CD, you’ll be thinking Respighi. The likeness may not last very long, but it’s meaningful. The music is by Luigi Mancinelli (1848-1921) and includes the world premiere recording of his Scene Veneziane Suite (Venetian Scenes) (1889), and...

Sterling Records has released this album of sacred music by German-Swiss composer Joachim Raff (1822-1882) containing eighty minutes of world premiere recordings. The largest scale work is De Profundis, Op. 141, programmed alongside his Te Deum, WoO 16 and three a cappella choral works....

Mendelssohn Rarities from Loft Recordings is comprised of pieces for solo organ, for a cappella chorus, for choir and organ, and one meditative and very beautiful five minute work for choir with string quintet and organ that concludes the program. This is the repertoire of Loft’s...

In all, Louis Théodore Gouvy wrote seven symphonies. With this recent release from cpo of the composer’s Symphony No. 4, Op. 25 (1855), the Symphony No. 6, Op. 58 (also known as Symphonie brève; variations et rondo pour orchestre) and the Fantaisie Symphonique, this much needed first...

I expect that any listener unfamiliar with the music of Ludwig Thiulle will be as pleased as I was to make his musical acquaintance. An excellent place to start is this delightful program of Thuille’s music for violin and piano from Naxos, especially given the inexpensive asking price....

The two tone poems on this Delos CD were obviously cut from the same cloth, which would have been the stage curtain of an opera house because both were originally conceived as operas. Russian pianist, educator and composer Anton Rubinstein (1829 – 1894) wrote twenty operas and developed a...

Léon Boëllmann (1862 – 1897) was a late French romantic composer who had an outstanding reputation among his peers during his lifetime. He was a talented organist and pianist remembered today mostly for his organ works, notably his Suite gothique of 1895. Although his music was largely...

The big story about this new Farao Classics Super Audio CD is the astonishing level of technical and musical playing achieved by the Bayerisches Staatsorchester French horn section performing Robert Schumann notoriously difficult Konzertstück for Four Horns and Orchestra. Kent Nagano leads...

A seldom recorded corner of Anton Arensky’s repertoire is his five suites for two pianos. Any listener who enjoys piano music of the late romantic period will find these to be a richly rewarding discovery. Arensky composed these suites in a time span of about thirteen years, from 1890 to...

It has been Lorin Maazel’s conviction that the orchestral score to Wagner’s epic Ring cycle is itself, the Ring. That the epic legend of the four operas is contained wholly in the orchestral score of The Ring Without Words. This assertion is certainly backed up by Wagner’s use of...

For any listener who loves chamber music of the romantic period, this is a must. It only took the first couple of achingly lovely seconds of the String Quartet in F Major by August Klughardt for me to feel that I had found a very special recording. Who was August Klughardt? Born in 1847 in the...