NEWS FROM THE NAXOS MUSIC GROUP

Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale of love and friendship, this glittering production is sure to delight the whole family. Scottish Ballet’s 50th anniversary year came to a spectacular close with the world premiere of The Snow Queen. Choreographed by artistic director Christopher Hampson and designed by the award-winning Lez Brotherston, this dazzling new ballet is set to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, performed here by the Scottish Ballet Orchestra.

In a world driven by greed, what do we truly value? Timon has it all – money, influence, friends. Surely it can’t last? When the money runs out, Timon soon finds her influence and friends have also gone. Left alone, she flees Athens to take refuge in the woods, cursing the city she once loved.

Simon Godwin directs Kathryn Hunter as Timon in this dark satire, which forces us to question where does happiness really lie?

Internationally acclaimed choreographer Cathy Marston, previously associate artist of The Royal Ballet and Director of Bern Ballett, created The Cellist for The Royal Ballet in 2020. The inspiration for her first work for the Royal Opera House Main Stage is the momentous life and career of cellist Jacqueline du Pré – from her discovery of the cello and her celebrity as one of its most extraordinary players, to her pain, frustration and struggle with multiple sclerosis. Composer Philip Feeney incorporates some of the most moving and powerful music for cello by Elgar, Beethoven, Fauré, Mendelssohn, Piatti, Rachmaninov and Schubert into an exquisite score that is itself an homage to the cello.

Jerome Robbins’ elegant and elegiac classic, Dances at a Gathering, is the other work in the programme. As pure dance for five couples, set to music by Chopin, it's a masterpiece of subtlety and invention.

Written by John Gay in 1728, The Beggar's Opera is widely considered to be the first musical comedy, and one that preempted by about 300 years the current vogue for “jukebox“ productions, which create a plot to fit around hit songs. Gay took some of the best-known tunes of his day, both classical and popular, and worked them into a savagely satirical tale set amongst London's thieves, pimps and prostitutes.

The first six volumes (9.70307–9.70312) of the cycle of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas by Boris Giltburg have been received with much acclaim: ‘[Giltburg brings] us closer to the spontaneous feel of a live performance... on this form Naxos’s cycle looks set to be something special’ (Malcolm Hayes, BBC Music Magazine, on Sonatas Nos. 4–7 / 9.70308). In this instalment the light and joyful Nos. 24 and 25 are bookended by two cornerstones of Beethoven’s piano sonatas: the powerfully dramatic Appassionata, and Les Adieux, the only programmatic sonata in Beethoven’s cycle.

Boris Giltburg also wrote a related article for The Guardian. Click here to read the article.

Russian born arranger Paul Struck has arranged two of Beethoven’s great mid-period chamber masterpieces for soloist and string ensemble. Expanding the sonorities of the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata – Beethoven’s most important chamber work for violin – allows the sonata’s concertante quality to emerge in a new light. The Cello Sonata No. 3 equally succeeds in conceiving the piano part for ensemble, while exploring fullness of sound and maintaining transparency of texture.

The first volume (8.551400) with Vinzenz Lachner‘s arrangements of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concertos for piano and string quintet already showed that this would be quite a special complete recording of Beethoven’s piano concertos – and not just because it is the first recording to present this version for the first time ever. For the second volume, Hanna Shybayeva chose the piano trio version of the second symphony in D major Op. 36 to be added in the arrangement by the master himself. After all, this chamber music arrangement from Beethoven's pen fits perfectly with those of the piano concertos of later times.

Boris Giltburg has set out to learn and film all 32 piano sonatas by Beethoven by the end of 2020. The project started as a personal exploration, driven by curiosity and his strong love of the Beethoven sonatas, and the recordings presented in this initial volume display Giltburg’s customary spirit, technical finesse and convey the electric atmosphere of the live recording.

Beethoven started composing Leonore in January 1804. The subject – the release to freedom of an unjustly imprisoned man by his devoted wife – was part of the genre of ‘rescue operas’ which were very popular at the end of the 18th century. The premiere of Leonore, given before an uncomprehending audience at a time of political upheaval, was a failure and Beethoven responded by shortening the work from three acts to two, which was the version performed in 1806. After further revisions it was to emerge in 1814 as Fidelio. This performance is from Opera Lafayette’s Leonore Project which included a performance of Pierre Gaveaux’s Léonore, ou L’Amour conjugal (available on Naxos DVD 2.110591 and Blu-ray NBD0085V) – the opera on which Beethoven modelled his Leonore.