Naxos favourites

[EdgeleyRob]

Mendelssohn piano and chamber music and numerous cds of british music.

[doversoul1]

Buxtehude by Lars Ulrik Mortensen. Both harpsichord solo and vocal music
Clementi on the fortepiano
Finzi Clarinet Concerto plus Bagatelles and a few more goodies played by Robert Plane and Northern Sinfonia conducted by Howard Griffiths

To avoid: I bought a CD of glass harmonica some years ago… There is no other Bruno Hoffman.

[Rolmill]

Yes, there are a lot of hits in the Naxos catalogue, as well as the inevitable misses. A few more to add to the various recommendations above:

Rossini Barber of Seville
Bellini La Sonnambula
Dvorak string quartet series
St John's College, Cambridge British choral music series
Britten Ceremony of Carols
Peter Donohoe's several British piano concerto discs
Tallis Lamentations (Summerley)
Arriaga symphony in D
Nielsen string quartets
Bridge string quartets
Zarzuela choral and orchestral excerpts
Lots of good American symphonies/orchestral music (many are reissues)

I could go on (and on...) - a great way to explore.

[Richard Tarleton]

the Weiss lute series by Robert Barto

Naxos is a treasure house for pluckers. A few:
Nigel North's complete Dowland lute music
Byrd, My Ladye Nevell's Booke, a 3 CD set by Elizabeth Farr (harpsichord) on various instruments
British Guitar Music (Walton, Maxwell D, Rawsthorne, Berkely, RR Bennett) by Graham Anthony Devine played on a fine-sounding 1965 Hernandez Y Aguado guitar
The Naxos Guitar Collection - discs too numerous to list individually, a great collection.

A special word for Norbert Kraft, co-ordinator and producer of the series (and of the North Dowland set), all the above discs being recorded at venues in Ontario - Kraft has also recorded a few himself, good reference performances.

[cloughie]

Naxos is a treasure house for pluckers. A few:
Nigel North's complete Dowland lute music
Byrd, My Ladye Nevell's Booke, a 3 CD set by Elizabeth Farr (harpsichord) on various instruments
British Guitar Music (Walton, Maxwell D, Rawsthorne, Berkely, RR Bennett) by Graham Anthony Devine played on a fine-sounding 1965 Hernandez Y Aguado guitar
The Naxos Guitar Collection - discs too numerous to list individually, a great collection.

A special word for Norbert Kraft, co-ordinator and producer of the series (and of the North Dowland set), all the above discs being recorded at venues in Ontario - Kraft has also recorded a few himself, good reference performances.

And who'd heard of Lilburn before Naxos introduced him?

[Richard Tarleton]

And who'd heard of Lilburn before Naxos introduced him?

New to me cloughie, thanks for the tip - where's a good place to start?

[Bryn]

And who'd heard of Lilburn before Naxos introduced him?

Well I certainly had, as a long term Radio 3 listener. That does not in any way detract for Naxos's Stirling work in making his and many other relatively unsung composers' work available.

[cloughie]

Well I certainly had, as a long term Radio 3 listener. That does not in any way detract for Naxos's Stirling work in making his and many other relatively unsung composers' work available.

Well as a long-term Radio 3 listener I don't recall vast swathes and it was certainly Naxos that alerted me to his talent!

[Bryn]

Well as a long-term Radio 3 listener I don't recall vast swathes and it was certainly Naxos that alerted me to his talent!

Well. I would not call two CDs devoted to his music, and two others on which he is represented, a vast swathe either. My point was simply that I was introduced to his work by Radio 3, rather then by Naxos.

[cloughie]

Well. I would not call two CDs devoted to his music, and two others on which he is represented, a vast swathe either. My point was simply that I was introduced to his work by Radio 3, rather then by Naxos.

I didn't say there were vast swathes frm Naxos, and obviously my radar on Radio 3 was missed, when were you first alerted to the New Zealand composer?

[Bryn]

I didn't say there were vast swathes frm Naxos, and obviously my radar on Radio 3 was missed, when were you first alerted to the New Zealand composer?

Too long ago to give chapter and verse, but I had certainly heard his work on Radio 3 by the time I first met his younger compatriot Phil Dadson at Morley College in 1969.

[Alf-Prufrock]

I am grateful to Naxos for reissuing the old Collins set of English song albums. I find I have nine issues but that the latest is numbered 'Volume 16'. I must get the other seven if I don't already have them in their Collins guise.

LATER - I find I have two more as Collins issues. So I have five more to get - but Naxos may have issued more anyway!

[jayne lee wilson]

The Roussel series with the SNO and Stephane Deneuve is dashed fine, a bright, fresh-minted alternative to Cluytens, Munch et al. (I thought the IRR were a little harsh on one or two of them).

Paul Daniel's terrific Walton series, especially the 1st Symphony.

Antoni Wit's Symanowski series is inspired and idiomatic, if a little close and compressed. No. 4 especially good.

Robert Craft's Schoenberg and Stravinsky (some of it from Koch) a little uneven but lots to choose from!

I too love that Rautavaara Cantus Arcticus (Lintu/SNO) - that bit where all the Curlews come chorusing in brings a tear or two...

I've heard good things about Arthur Fagin's Martinu cycle, but haven't heard it for myself... anyone?

Special request: please, Naxos, reissue Max Davies' Worldes Blis from Collins. It NEEDS to be heard by many more!

[Mahlerei]

Jayne

Do you mean the concertos with Koukl/Fagen? I've heard the disc of 1, 2 and 4 and found it somewhat disappointing. Uneven music, IMO, and uneven performances. Naxos sound not the best either.

Agree about Wit's Szymanowski - and his Penderecki - and had high hopes for his Glagolitic Mass. Alas, the latter is nowhere near as febrile as it should be and the soloists aren't up to snuff; a very curious reading indeed.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Well. I would not call two CDs devoted to his music, and two others on which he is represented, a vast swathe either. My point was simply that I was introduced to his work by Radio 3, rather then by Naxos.

I introduced myself to Lilburn by borrowing a record from our local library reserve about 25 years ago. My recordings of the symphonies are on a Contunuum disc.

Naxos has done a particularly invaluable service to British chamber music and some aspects of American music (though they sometimes seem to release to many works by complete non-entities). The disc of the two Piston Violin Concertos is one of the Naxos highlights for me. I do hope they go on to record all of the Harris and Diamond symphonies (the performance of Harris 3 is poor but the rest are OK) as these are among the few significant composers still not to have had all their symphonies comitted to disc.