8.660300-01  Laurent Petitgirard: Guru - An Opera in Three Acts

Our recording of the composer’s Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man was well received – it's an accessible contemporary opera and so is Mr. Petitgirard’s latest opera Guru. I am very keen on this recording because for us Laurent Petitgirard is also very important as a conductor – he is the music director of the Colonne Orchestra and will undertake a series of recordings of French music with his orchestra starting next year.

8.572023  Loeillet De Gant, Jean Baptiste: Recorder Sonatas

Daniel Rothert is an outstanding recorder virtuoso – he has previously recorded works by Haydn, Telemann and Vivaldi for Naxos.

The French composer Loeillet de Gant is popular with recorder players and our recording fills a big gap. The sonatas are most enjoyable to listen to even if you are not a recorder fan.

8.570145  William Alwyn: Concerti Grossi Nos 2 & 3

Our recording of the Concerto Gross No. 1 was very well received and here David Lloyd-Jones brings us the remaining two concerti. There are also several descriptive scores recorded here with the Serenade and the orchestral version of Seven Irish Tunes receiving their premiere recordings on our disc.

8.572376  Bela Bartók: Piano Music, Vol 6 - First Term at the Piano, Petits morceaux, Four Piano Pieces, Two Elegies

This is a collection of youthful and educative piano pieces performed by our great Naxos house pianist, Jenõ Jandó. Jenõ is a professor at the Liszt Academy in Budapest which makes these recordings authoritative. There are five earlier volumes in the series as well as Bartók’s three piano concertos. Jenõ has made many other recordings for Naxos including Beethoven’s three most popular piano sonatas in 1987, the year the label was launched.

8.572515  Antonio Soler: Keyboard Sonatas Nos 1-15

This is the first volume of a project to record the complete Soler sonatas on the piano rather than on harpsichord. We are undertaking this project in cooperation with the Barcelona Maria Canals Competition and the pianist on this first volume, the Croatian Martina Filjak, won the competition in 2008. She also won first prize at the 2009 Cleveland Competition, perhaps the most important piano competition in the world today. I personally prefer Soler and Scarlatti on the piano rather than on the harpsichord for which they composed their keyboard works. Almost 80 minutes of pure listening pleasure! Subsequent volumes will be recorded by other first-prize winners of the Barcelona competition.