Naxos Classical Spotlight explores the world of classical music. Along the way host Raymond Bisha shares the stories about the music, and the musicians who make it.
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Naxos Of America Podcasts
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Florence Price's choral works. An introduction.
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Florence Price’s abiding interest in the literary arts helps explain the extraordinarily large number of vocal compositions in her catalogue – well over one hundred – as well as the fact that she occasionally supplied texts of her own for these pieces. Conductor John Jeter discusses with Raymond Bisha his latest album of Price's music which compris…
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Assembled again. The Peterhouse Partbooks.
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Collected for use in the chapel of Cambridge University's Peterhouse college in the 1630s and hidden during the Civil War, the Peterhouse Partbooks represent one of the most important manuscript collections of sacred choral music from the period. In this podcast, Raymond Bisha presents performances of those works by the Peterhouse choir, affording …
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Sweeping Romanticism. Polish folk spirit. Orchestral music by Zygmunt Noskowski.
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Although the music of Polish composer Zygmunt Noskowski (1846–1909) is less well known than that of his teacher (Stanisław Moniuszko) and his students (Karol Szymanowski and Mieczysław Karłowicz), Noskowski was nonetheless the primary exponent of modern symphonic music in Poland for most of the 19th century; he also introduced the idea of the symph…
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Bizarre and beautiful. Telemann, Vivaldi, Rosetti horn concertos.
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In this podcast, Raymond Bisha unearths captivating performances of horn concertos by Rosetti, Vivaldi and Telemann. Did the latter have a few Steins of Alsterwasser to hand when depicting concertising frogs and crows? Listen on...
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Valentin Silvestrov. A powerful voice, defiant in exile.
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Valentin Silvestrov was forced to leave his native Ukraine after the Russian invasion of 2022. His music has a prescient quality that unerringly seems to express the fate of his homeland. Raymond Bisha introduces the world premiere recordings of his intimate Violin Concerto and the heartfelt, single-span Eighth Symphony. Notable for their economy o…
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This album with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra features music by Australian composer Liza Lim, with whom the orchestra has an ongoing relationship. Over the past decade the orchestra has been involved in commissioning all three works on this album: The Compass for orchestra with solo flute and digeridoo, A Sutured World for Cello and Orchest…
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Alan Hovhaness. A prolific legacy of East-West synthesis.
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The music of Alan Hovhaness, one of America’s most prolific composers, enchants with his signature synthesis of East and West. Influenced by his Armenian heritage and a fascination with nature and spirituality, Hovhaness sought to create music “for all people, music which is beautiful and healing.” Raymond Bisha introduces the latest Naxos album of…
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There is a span of nearly six decades between the first and last of the compositions on this album of piano music by Czech composer Alois Hába, with works written during various creative periods and with differing intentions. As a whole, they document both the development of the composer’s musical thinking and goals and the diversity of approach to…
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Vasari Singers. Close harmony. Open perfection.
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Vasari Singers, one of the UK's pre-eminent choirs, have titled their new album The Music Never Ends, referencing Michel Legrand and his celebrated song How do you Keep the Music Playing? And by the end of the album's twenty-one tracks, you'll wish it could be so. Raymond Bisha dips into the programme's multi-faceted offerings, while didgeridoo pla…
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Introducing piano works by Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez
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Composer/poet Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1897. He went on to become a leading figure in the development of Brazil's classical music scene, as a composer, conductor, musicologist, and a professor of harmony in the National Music Institute in Rio de Janeiro, as well as other institutions. Along with Francisco Mignone and ot…
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An Introduction to the United Strings of Europe
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In this podcast Raymond Bisha talks with Julian Azkoul, Director of United Strings of Europe, about how the group started, about their album, and about how they started recording for BIS label at the invitation of their legendary founder and producer Robert von Bahr. It is hard to overstate how important Robert's unequivocal support was for the ens…
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"Just Biber". A new album with Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque
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In Biber’s time, harmony was something cosmic, vibrating in a God-given resonance between human, instrumental, and celestial bodies. After all, the string instrument in early modern Europe was configured as a human body – with a neck, belly, and ribs to match. The Sonatas were therefore not only designed to delight, but also potentially to balm and…
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Introducing the symphonic sphere of Leevi Madetoja
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“I feel that you will achieve your greatest triumphs in [the symphonic] genre for I consider you to have precisely the properties that make a great symphonic composer. This is my firm belief.” Thus wrote Jan Sibelius in 1914 to his former student Leevi Madetoja. Raymond Bisha presents supporting evidence for that foresight in extracts from Madetoja…
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Halleluja Junction. American Music for Two Piano
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The musical partnership of pianists Anna Geniushene and Lukas Geniušas, both esteemed prize-winners of major international competitions, is not just a testament to their flourishing solo careers and a shared musical heritage and philosophy. It is a profound expression of their deep emotional connection, a bond that resonates in their performances a…
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Joby Talbot details the progression of his ballet score, The Winter's Tale.
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Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon's ballet The Winter's Tale (after Shakespeare) was first performed by Covent Garden's Royal Ballet in 2014. In this podcast, the score's creative unfolding is described by composer Joby Talbot, prior to a 2025 performance of the ballet in New York City. The presenter is Raymond Bisha.…
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From expressive intimacy to rhythmic incision. Music for guitar trio.
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This podcast introduces a recently released, diverse programme of works for guitar trio bound by the common thread of music inspired by stories from literature, stage or screen. Performed by the Volterra Project Trio, the album's seventeen tracks take us from the rhythmic exuberance and tragic beauty of Bernstein’s West Side Story to the evocative …
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Behzod Abduraimov plays Prokkofiev and Shor
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In his album liner notes Behzod Abduraimov writes: "I see this pairing as an opportunity to present two vastly different emotional and philosophical worlds within the same album. I want to offer listeners a striking contrast: the depth and complexity of Prokofiev’s world against Shor’s more lyrical and accessible approach. Each piece reflects diffe…
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Transcription addiction. Liszt refashions Mozart and Donizetti.
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In his later years, Liszt increasingly pursued his favoured causes by using piano transcriptions of other composers' works; and his own symphonic poems appeared as transcriptions from the 1850s. In 1865 Liszt famously complained to Hans von Bülow that “I have better things to do with my time than transcribe, paraphrase, and illustrate, and from now…
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Vienna Mandolin Stories, an interview with Alon Sariel
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This project by Alon Sariel and the Kölner Akademie celebrates the versatility of the mandolin on the cusp of the classical period. However, the (hi)story of the mandolin in Vienna is surprisingly different from elsewhere in Europe, and in some cases we are still discovering new astonishing aspects. In contrast to the rest of Europe, Vienna seems t…
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Weigl's Third Symphony. A long overdue premiere.
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This podcast introduces two works by Karl Weigl (1881-1949), his Symphony No. 3 and the Symphonic Prelude to a Tragedy. Both were written at the beginning of the 1930s but then suffered from decades of neglect. Weigl drew on the sound world of late Romanticism, never abandoning this aesthetic in favour of more progressive contemporary trends. Happi…
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Composer Ronald Stevenson. A fantastically original musical mind.
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Scottish father, Welsh mother, born in England, polyglot, highly intellectual, educator, composer, phenomenal pianist and a fantastically original musical mind. Introductions such as this don't crop up too often, so take time out to listen to this podcast about Ronald Stevenson's highly engaging piano music as performed and introduced by Peter Jabl…
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Conductor John Jeter has been central to the rediscovery and representation of Florence Price's orchestral works. In this podcast, he discusses with Raymond Bisha his latest recording of her piano concerto and her two violin concertos, the only works she composed in the genre. The early First Violin Concerto, with shades of Tchaikovsky and underton…
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Lepo Sumera. At the forefront of Estonian music
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Lepo Sumera (1950–2000) was one of the most important figures in Estonian music following World War Two. He might also be considered one of the most important European symphonists during the last quarter of the 20th century, when he wrote his impressive series of six symphonies that embody imaginative orchestral colour and a skilful sense of struct…
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Evocative, filmic, celebratory. Sacred choral music by Philip Stopford.
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In this podcast Raymond Bisha introduces an album of sacred choral music by Philip Stopford in which all the items were composed between 2013 and 2022 and are heard in their world premiere recordings. Beautifully crafted, memorable, colourful and deeply rooted in the Anglican tradition, Stopford's works are immediately attractive and widely admired…
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Weinberg's complete music for cello and orchestra.
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Working amidst political and personal setbacks, Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96) flourished as a composer, admired by Shostakovich and championed by the leading Soviet musicians of the day. His death in Moscow in 1996, however, went largely unnoticed. More happily, his extensive catalogue has recently secured an increasing number of performances and r…
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