Philharmonia Orchestra - Sea Interludes Elgar: Violin Concerto - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The works on this album feature the Scandinavian influences that the Swedish violinist and the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg exerted on Julius Röntgen's music for violin and piano. Amanda Maier was Röntgen's great love and his first wife, and Grieg was his best friend. Significantly, Edvard Grieg is represented in the first work on this in the form of the sonata that Röntgen composed InchIn Memory of Edvard Grieg.Inch However, precisely this work is the only one on the present program that was not published during Röntgen's lifetime. His Swedish Melodies and Dances may initially seem unassuming, but they display the highest virtuosity. They require great technical mastery from the instrumentalists with their third, sixth, and octave intervals, swift passages in the highest register, and leaps extending over several octaves. Even though the Norwegian Variations last a mere seven minutes and thus are not very lengthily dimensioned, they number among Röntgen's best variation works. The exposition of the theme in D major is followed by eight variations in which the piano and the violin take turns in the lead role.

Lukasz Borowicz, conductor, writes InchThere are neither performers nor audiences, both at home and abroad, who are familiar with the works of Stefan Boleslaw Poradowski. Excellent composer, educator, conductor, cultural life promoter... his ser-vices to the province of Wielkopolska can hardly be overestimated. For this reason, it was with great pleasure that Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, it's illustrious soloists, and I began work on an album intended to bring his music back from oblivion, as it undoubtedly deserves to be present on the concert circuit and the phonographic market.Inch The works on this album are world premiere recordings.

London Philharmonic Orchestra - Orchestral Works [COMPACT DISCS] date 04/10/2007