NEW ON NAXOS | MARCH 2025
Franz LISZT (1811–1886) Complete Piano Music, Vol. 65 Piano Works on Hungarian Themes Christopher Williams, Piano
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For almost five decades, Franz Liszt wrote music that incorporated Hungarian elements and celebrated his country’s musical idioms. One of the most famous of these pieces was the Rákóczi March , two different versions of which can be heard in this album, the first in full sonata form, and the second in a more concise version. Liszt often utilised the verbunkos tradition as he does in Magyar dallok along with infectious dulcimer evocations, folk scales, drama and melancholy. Two contrasting versions of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 – Magyar tempo and Célèbre mélodie hongroise – round out this evocative Hungarian selection. Key features: • Christopher Williams ’ recording of Mendelssohn Piano Rarities album was released on 8.574509 in November 2023: ‘[Williams] certainly makes the most of this otherwise ignored repertoire. He is well suited to handling the music’s difficulties, of which there are many, and most of all seems to have fun doing so’ ( Fanfare ). • His recording of Brahms transcriptions for the Grand Piano label (GP749) was featured as album of the week on NDR Kultur . ‘These arrangements are engaging and virtuosic, and I imagine that you would have had to be a more than competent pianist to do the music justice… Christopher Williams gives an excellent performance of both works’ ( MusicWeb International ).
8.574614 Release date: 28 Mar 2025 Companion titles – Previous recordings in Liszt Complete Piano Music series
Click to listen to Célèbre mélodie hongroise, S243
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Notker BALBULUS (c. 840–912) Liber ymnorum Schola Antiqua of Chicago Michael Alan Anderson
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Notker Balbulus, also known as Notker of St Gall or Notker the Stammerer, was a renowned Benedictine monk at the Abbey of St Gall in Switzerland who made substantial contributions to both the music and literature of his time. These include the Liber ymnorum , which forms an important collection of early musical sequences that celebrate special moments in the liturgical calendar. As the ‘very long melodies’ of the liturgical sequences were a formidable challenge to memorise, Notker created these texts as an aid to holding the melodies within the mind and memory. They are performed here by the acclaimed and insightful Schola Antiqua of Chicago. Key features: •
This recording featuring the poetry of Notker of St Gall reflects a lifelong project of Schola Antiqua of Chicago ’s founding artistic director, Calvin M. Bower. Bower has been studying Notker’s texts for some 50 years, and his edition of Notker’s Liber ymnorum was published by the Henry Bradshaw Society in 2016. This edition won the Claude V. Palisca Award of the American Musicological Society for the best scholarly edition in the field of musicology in 2016. •
8.579169 Release date: 28 Mar 2025 Companion titles – Recommended early music releases
This album follows on from Schola Antiqua of Chicago’s Missa Conceptio tua (Naxos 8.573260) with music for the Advent season. This was considered ‘an absolutely beautiful disc’ in Classical Net , and ‘not only as a wonderful introduction to Pierre de la Rue’s mass setting but also as the definitive recording of the work’ in the Choral Journal .
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Click to listen to Alleluia. Dies sanctificatus illuxit nobis
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