Chopin / Labazevitch / Strusinska / Beethoven - Orchestral Works - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Leonard Slatkin celebrated his 75th birthday in September 2019. Many of the selections in this program come from a concert given in his honor and are also a tribute to his remarkable musical family, both past and present. Historical recordings include Leonard's cellist mother, Eleanor Aller, being conducted by Korngold in the Haydn concerto and a 1944 broadcast of his father, Felix, as a solo violinist in Brahms. Every piece here has a deeply personal connection for the family. For his composition The Raven, Leonard used Edgar Allan Poe's poem in a work that is Inchalmost like a concerto for speaker and orchestra.Inch

Olga Pashchenko is in the process of creating a unique place for herself in the world of the keyboard she moves with astounding ease and skill from the harpsichord to the fortepiano, the organ, and the modern piano. After a recording of Beethoven's variations in 2015, the young pianist has now gone to the legendary Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, a venue she knows well since she regularly gives concerts within it's walls, to record three monuments of the pianistic literature - the Appassionata, Les Adieux and Waldstein sonatas - on the original Conrad Graf piano of 1824 conserved there. She utilizes all the sonic possibilities and the full palette of colors of this instrument made around fifteen years after the composition of these sonatas, three of the finest in the corpus of thirty-two that Hans von Bulow called 'the New Testament of every pianist'.

An icon in Danish music. Composer, arranger, conductor, entertainer Emil Reesen (1887- 1964) cut a dash through Danish 20th-century music. He was the pupil of Rued Langgaard. From 1927 to 1936 he was a conductor at the Danish Radio, 1942 to 44 at The New Theatre of Copenhagen and at the Royal Theatre from 1950. He was the chairman of Danish Conductors' Association, of the Society of the Publication of Danish Music, and of the music committee of the Danish Society. He was also censor at the music department of the Danish Radio. His works include opera, ballets, stage music, film music, orchestral compositions, cantatas, songs. His pieces were always stylishly crafted for the occasion, whether to commemorate a Polar explorer or celebrate a famous castrato. Danacord's wide-ranging tribute includes many live and broadcast recordings never previously issued. Album Tracks 1. Himmerland (Danish Rhapsody) 2. Variations on a Theme of Schubert 3. Grønlandsk Folketone (Greenlandic Folk Music) 4. Historien om en moder (The Story of a Mother)~Intermezzo 5. Farinelli~Sangen har vinger (The Song Has Wings) 6. Farinelli~Den som har livets mildhed søgt (He Who Has Pursued Life's Gentleness) 7. Farinelli~Livets glæder (The Pleasures of Life) 8. Farinelli~Der er en sang (There Is a Song) 9. Fantasy on South Jutland Melodies 10. Fantasy on Danish Christmas Melodies 11. Radio Exhibition Fanfare 12. Radiofonia (Rapsodia Burlesque)