The New on Naxos for August 2024 highlights the next instalment of Late Symphonies by Franz Joseph Haydn, including Nos. 99, 100 & 101. Naxos celebrates American composer George Walker, with a second volume of Complete Piano Works by Alexandre Dossin, and Naxos welcomes a new release from Spectrum Concerts Berlin – with a brand new recording of Taneyev’s Violin Sonata and Piano Quintet, Op. 30. Enjoy!
NEW ON NAXOS The World’s Leading Classical Music Label AUGUST 2024
This Month’s Other Highlights
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NEW ON NAXOS | AUGUST 2024
8.574518 Release date: 9 Aug 2024
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Adam Fischer © Toke Bjørneboe
Click to listen to Symphony No. 99 in E flat major, Hob.I:99: I. Adagio – Vivace assai LISTEN
Key features: • This set of Haydn’s last and greatest symphonies arrives in the wake of the Danish Chamber Orchestra and Adam Fischer’s acclaimed series of the complete symphonies of Beethoven (8.505251) and Brahms (8.574465–67), and Adam Fischer and his orchestra use their recent experiences in this and other repertoire to play this Haydn series in as exciting and colourful way as possible. This edition is shaping up to become as collectable as all of Fischer’s previous symphonic recordings, and there is now a buzz of excitement around each release in this new Haydn project. • Vol. 1 (8.574516) of this series received wide critical acclaim: ‘Fischer points out that Haydn’s ‘London’ symphonies were greeted at their first performances by the sort of wild enthusiasm that’s reserved nowadays for rock concerts. He aims to recreate some of that excitement in the performing style he cultivates with the Danish Chamber Orchestra, with its crisply articulated string playing and strongly contrasted dynamics’ ( BBC Music Magazine). • Vol. 2 (8.574517) was equally well received: ‘Fischer never misses a trick with Haydn’s theatrical contrasts. Time and again we sense the composer gleefully taking himself by surprise’ ( Gramophone). Franz Joseph HAYDN (1732–1809) Late Symphonies, Vol. 3 Nos. 99, 100 ‘Military’ and 101 ‘The Clock’ Danish Chamber Orchestra Adam Fischer Franz Joseph Haydn’s last great symphonies electrified his London audiences, and with these recordings Adam Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra recreate the powerful, stormy and exciting effects that caused such a sensation in the 1790s. Symphony No. 99 in E flat major was Haydn’s first ever symphony to use clarinets; No. 100 in G major gained its ‘Military’ appellation due to its grand second movement featuring cymbals and triangle; and No. 101 in D major has long been nicknamed ‘The Clock’ due to the ticking rhythm in the second movement for plucked strings and bassoons. Previous volumes in the series are available on 8.574516 and 8.574517.
About Adam Fischer, Conductor Adam Fischer has been associated with the Danish Chamber Orchestra since 1997, serving as chief conductor from 1998, where he still is a major driving force and initiator both in Denmark and internationally. In 2019, he was awarded the international Wolf Prize for Music, was nominated Conductor of the Year by Presto Classical in the UK, and received the BBC Music Magazine Awards Orchestral Award for his recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra. In 2022, he received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA).
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NEW ON NAXOS | AUGUST 2024
8.574271 Release date: 9 Aug 2024
Francesco La Vecchia
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Companion titles – Francesco La Vecchia and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma The Rome Symphony Orchestra was established in 2002 by the Rome Foundation (Fondazione Roma Arte – Musei), a rare example in Europe of an orchestra that was completely privately funded. Under its artistic and musical director Francesco La Vecchia who, in turn, set up the Fondazione Arts Academy, the orchestra performed regularly in Rome at the Teatro Argentina, Teatro Sistina and Auditorium Conciliazione. It received critical and public recognition at distinguished venues in Asia, the Americas and Europe, with notable success in 2007 at the Berlin Philharmonie. Alberto FRANCHETTI (1860–1942) Symphony in E minor 1 Nella Foresta nera 2 Ermanno WOLF-FERRARI (1876–1948) Sinfonia da camera, Op. 8 3 MiNensemblet 3 Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma • Francesco La Vecchia 1–2 Alberto Franchetti and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari shared a similar dual heritage. Franchetti’s father was an Italian Baron, his mother was Viennese and Alberto studied in Germany where he composed the Symphony in E minor in 1884 as part of his graduation examination from Dresden Conservatory. Late Romantic and cast in the German symphonic tradition, it is a colourful, evocative and majestic work. Inspired by the wild beauty of the forests of the Rhine valley, Nella Foresta nera is a tranquil, atmospheric ‘symphonic impression’. Venetian-born to a Bavarian father, Wolf-Ferrari spent many years in Germany where he wrote his Sinfonia da camera . The work has an expansive symphonic breadth and utilises Romanticism’s full harmonic and melodic arsenal. About Francesco La Vecchia, Conductor
Click to listen to FRANCHETTI, A.: Symphony in E minor: III. Intermezzo e Trio LISTEN
Key features: •
The recording of Wolf-Ferrari’s Sinfonia da camera first appeared on Marco Polo 8.223868 where it was coupled with music by Strauss-Schoenberg and Bloch – ‘radiantly performed and elegantly recorded performances’ ( Fanfare ). • Wolf-Ferrari’s Suite Veneziana can be heard on 8.573583: ‘The wide-eyed variations are a display of the composer’s imaginative range of orchestral colours, especially with Haider’s orchestra here sounding at its best in warm, resonant, embracing acoustics’ ( Fanfare ). • The MiNensemblet is a professional chamber ensemble consisting of eleven full-time musicians, Norway’s only one of this size. It is administered by Musikk i Nordland (Nordland being one of Norway’s most northerly counties), a professional music institution which in turn is under the jurisdiction of Nordland County. • The Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma and conductor Francesco La Vecchia undertook a wide-ranging and well received series of recordings, principally for Naxos, of important compositions by Italian composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Busoni, Catalani, Ferrara, Ghedini, Malipiero, Mancinelli, Martucci, Mercadante, Petrassi, Sgambati and Wolf-Ferrari. Many of these are world premiere recordings.
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NEW ON NAXOS | AUGUST 2024
George WALKER (1922–2018) Complete Piano Works, Vol. 2 Alexandre Dossin, Piano University of Oregon Philharmonia David M. Jacobs
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George Walker’s international reputation as a composer and pianist was recognized with numerous commissions and awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1996. His piano music is colorful and brings to life unique musical soundscapes as heard in the cyclical Fourth Piano Sonata which alternates between sections of virtuoso muscularity and lyrical repose. The Piano Concerto integrates expansive Classical forms with inspiration derived from songs by Duke Ellington, something also cleverly hidden in Guido’s Hand . Walker concluded his impressive contribution to the modern repertoire with his passionate Fifth Piano Sonata – a work that packs monumental expressive range into an extremely concise span. Volume 1 of this two-volume complete edition can be heard on Naxos 8.559916. Key features: • This second volume of George Walker’s piano music joins its predecessor on Naxos 8.559916, released in April 2024, together forming a unique complete piano works edition. Including the rarely heard Piano Concerto , this is the first such recording done by one pianist. George Walker’s truly impressive Piano Concerto has not been recorded in more than 10 years, and this is only the third commercial recording available of this work. •
8.559942 Release date: 23 Aug 2024 Companion titles – Alexandre Dossin, Piano
Acclaimed by international critics, Steinway Artist Alexandre Dossin has already firmly established himself as an artist of the first rank, with awards for both First Prize and the Special Prize at the Martha Argerich International Piano Competition. Other awards include the Silver Medal in the Maria Callas Grand Prix and both the Third Prize and Special Prize at the Mozart International Piano Competition, among many international and national accolades received throughout his career.
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Click to listen to Piano Concerto: Movement III
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INCLUDES WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS
Eugene ZÁDOR (1894–1977) Piano Quintet (version for piano and string orchestra) Accordion Concerto • Suite for Brass Instruments • Hungarian Fantasy Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV Mariusz Smolij
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Devoted to music that celebrated the human spirit, Eugene Zádor took pleasure in composing for unusual ensembles. One such example of what he called ‘underprivileged’ instruments was the accordion and his delightful concerto for the instrument is tonal but coloured by a communicative, contemporary vocabulary. As befits the man who was Miklós Rózsa’s exclusive film-score orchestrator, Zádor finds glorious sonority and colour in the Suite for Brass Instruments . The evocative smaller pieces have been arranged by Mariusz Smolij as has the characterful and wide-ranging Piano Quintet of 1933 that won the Hungarian National State Prize. Key features: • Naxos has a sequence of seven other Zádor recordings all performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV under Mariusz Smolij . Celebration Music and other pieces was released in March 2023 on 8.574262: ‘The performances are uniformly superb… The orchestral sound is rich and warm, and conductor Mariusz Smolij is expressive with his rubato and generous in his dynamic shading’ ( Fanfare ). • Sinfonia Technica and other pieces are on 8.574108 . Records International wrote that it was ‘warmly expressive and colourful music’. •
8.574448 Release date: 23 Aug 2024 Companion titles – Eugene Zádor, Composer
The Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV is one of the leading orchestras in Hungary. It was founded in 1945 after the Second World War by the president of the Hungarian State Railway (MÁV). The orchestra’s repertoire ranges from Baroque to contemporary works, with an audience of over 50,000 people annually, reaching out to many more through radio and television broadcasts and online platforms. Successful tours have gained the orchestra acclaim across Europe and South America, as well as in China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Japan, Lebanon, Oman and South Korea.
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Click to listen to Accordion Concerto: III. Rondo alla zingaresca
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NEW ON NAXOS | AUGUST 2024
Organ Concertos OQUIN • PARKER • ROUSE Paul Jacobs, Organ Nashville Symphony • Giancarlo Guerrero
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The organ concerto tradition goes back to the 17th century and the Baroque era, but composers have constantly adapted this age-old genre to their own expressive ends – this recording provides ample evidence of its appeal today. The Organ Concerto by Horatio Parker, today remembered as Charles Ives’ teacher, emerged at a time when composers were seeking an authentically American voice and was hailed by one critic as “imposing and brilliant.” Dedicated to Paul Jacobs, Christopher Rouse’s Organ Concerto is notable for its contrasting dark and light sonorities both in instrumentation and harmonic color. Wayne Oquin’s Resilience reflects the human capacity for tenacity and perseverance; the composer describes it as “a 13-minute exploration of two seemingly limitless spheres.” The program ends with Ives’ Variations on “America” – a piece for solo organ composed for the Fourth of July celebrations in 1892. Key features: • Led by six-time GRAMMY Award-winning conductor and music director Giancarlo Guerrero , the Nashville Symphony performs more than 160 concerts annually, with a focus on contemporary American orchestral music through collaborations with composers. •
8.559936 Release date: 23 Aug 2024
Companion titles – Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony
The Nashville Symphony is one of the most active recording orchestras in the US, with more than 40 releases, the majority on Naxos. Together, these recordings have earned a total of 25 GRAMMY Award nominations and 13 GRAMMY Awards, including two for Best Orchestral Performance. •
8.559798 8.559740 8.559823 8.559852 Paul Jacobs, Organ
Organist Paul Jacobs has performed in all 50 United States and all over the world. The only organist ever to have won a GRAMMY Award (in 2011 for Messiaen’s Livre du Saint-Sacrement on Naxos 8.572436-37), he is a fierce advocate of new music and combines a probing intellect and extraordinary technical skills with a repertoire that spans the gamut of music written for his instrument, both old and new.
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Click to listen to PARKER, H.: Organ Concerto in E flat minor, Op. 55: III. Allegro moderato, molto risoluto
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Erich J. WOLFF (1874–1913) Complete Songs, Vol. 2 Ida Aldrian, Mezzo-soprano Klaus Simon, Piano
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Erich J. Wolff was a friend and contemporary of Schoenberg and Zemlinsky – his songs were highly successful and much admired before the First World War. Wolff’s tragic early death, however, contributed to his music being almost entirely forgotten today. Mostly dating from his final decade, the songs in this selection range from the charming children’s cycle Vier Kinderlieder von Richard Dehmel , to the incomparably profound cemetery scene of Friedhof . The recital concludes with the radiant Mein Meister , one of Wolff’s very last songs. Key features: • austrian mezzo-soprano Ida Aldrian is currently a member of the ensemble at the Staatsoper Hamburg, where she previously attended the International Opera Studio. From 2015 to 2018, Aldrian was a member of the ensemble at the Staatstheater Nürnberg. Guest engagements have taken her to the Zurich Opera House and the Staatsoper im Schiller Theater, Berlin. In concert, she has worked with renowned conductors such as Simone Young, Kent Nagano, Martin Haselböck, Thomas Hengelbrock and Fabio Luisi. • German pianist Klaus Simon has a particular focus on song, and at the heart of his work as a Lieder accompanist are the German late-Romantic and early-modern composers. For Naxos he has recorded the complete songs by Pfitzner ( Complete Lieder, Vols. 1–5 [8.572602, 8.572603, 8.573081, 8.573082 and 8.573785]) and Korngold ( Songs, Vols. 1 and 2 [8.572027, 8.573083]).
8.574557 Release date: 23 Aug 2024
Companion titles – Klaus Simon, Pianist and Conductor
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Click to listen to Vier Lieder, Op. 3 – No. 4. Sehnsucht (‘Longing’)
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NEW ON NAXOS | AUGUST 2024
Sergey Ivanovich TANEYEV (1856–1915) Violin Sonata * • Piano Quintet, Op. 30 ** Spectrum Concerts Berlin – Eldar Nebolsin, Piano Boris Brovtsyn * ** , Mohamed Hiber ** , Violins Gareth Lubbe, Viola ** • Alexey Stadler, Cello **
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Sergey Taneyev’s music was acclaimed by some as a ‘model of pure style and sublime art’, but he was a loner whose supreme mastery of European Classical technique placed him outside the more nationalist trends of the day. The Violin Sonata in A minor is neo-Classical in its reserved and often song-like moods and expressions. It contrasts with the grand scale of the Piano Quintet in G minor in which the virtuoso nature of the piano writing reflects Taneyev’s own prowess, and the brilliant integration of the works’ themes cumulate into an overwhelming conclusion. Key features: •
This recording joins a previous release from Spectrum Concerts Berlin with Sergey Taneyev’s String Trio, Op. 31 and Piano Quartet, Op. 20 on Naxos 8.574367. This was much admired by critics such as John Dutterer of the American Record Guide , who declared that the ‘three members of the Spectrum Concerts play like a veteran trio here, and unlike most trios they have an artistic director, Frank Dodge, shaping the interpretations. As a result, this feels like a significant release rather than a side project.’
8.574566 Release date: 9 Aug 2024
Companion titles – Other recordings featuring the Spectrum Concerts Berlin
From left to right: Mohamed Hiber , Alexey Stadler , Boris Brovtsyn , Gareth Lubbe , Eldar Nebolsin and Michael Havenstein (recording producer)
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• Some of Taneyev’s chamber works remained in the repertoire of Russian artists from the Soviet era such as David Oistrakh, Maria Yudina and the Moscow Beethoven Quartet but his music became largely neglected after his death. The Naxos label has played a significant role in reviving awareness of Taneyev’s brilliance as a composer in recent decades with numerous releases including complete editions of his string quartets and symphonies. Other labels have some titles in their catalogues, but we are clear market leaders for this composer.
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Click to listen to Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 30: I. Introduzione: Adagio mesto – Allegro patetico
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WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS
Spyridon SAMARAS (1861–1917) Tigra 1 Epinikeia 2 • Chitarrata 3 Lenia Safiropoulou, Soprano 1
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Marissia Papalexiou 1 , Varvara Tsambali 2 , Maria Vlachopoulou 1 , Mezzo-sopranos Angelo Simos, Tenor 1 • Dionysios Sourbis, Baritone 1 • Dimitri Kavrakos, Bass 1 Sofia Metropolitan Golden Voices Mixed and Children’s Choir 1 Sofia Amadeus Orchestra 1 Fretted String Ensemble of the Corfu Music School 3 Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra 2–3 Byron Fidetzis
Spyridon Samaras was the most internationally respected Greek composer of his time, yet it is only in recent years that some of his major works have been edited or orchestrated for performance. Tigra is a major case in point, a ravishing love story set in medieval Venice, and a product of Samaras’s operatic maturity. With its innovative harmonic language set to an Italian text, musical Orientalism and Franco-Italian influences it helped pave the way for the emerging Greek National School. It has been faithfully orchestrated by Byron Fidetzis. Epinikeia is reminiscent of Samaras’s famous Olympic Anthem of 1896, while Chitarrata is a youthful work composed in Paris. Key features: • Conductor Byron Fidetzis has been artistic director of the Athens Philharmonia Orchestra since 2016. He has recorded Samaras’ opera Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle (8.660508-09): ‘Fidetzis is to be congratulated for his efforts in restoring this lovely work and for conducting a persuasive recording of it’ ( American Record Guide ). •
8.574358 Release date: 9 Aug 2024
Companion titles – Greek classics
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He has also recorded Kalafati’s Symphony in A minor , Légende and Polonaise (8.574132): ‘Byron Fidetzis conducts the Athens Philharmonia Orchestra with a firm and sensitive baton, and they deliver the music with assurance and strong ensemble’ ( Fanfare ). He also orchestrated and performed Kalomiris’s Rhapsody No. 2 ‘Song to the Night’ (8.572451).
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Click to listen to Tigra – Donna Palma! – Guardate donne
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RETURN HOME
Wenchen QIN (b. 1966) The Cloud River The Light of the Deities Seeking Sound – Pictures of Ling Lun’s Inspiration Poetry of the Land
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Yang Zheng, Sheng • Xinxin Song, Zheng ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra Gottfried Rabl
Award-winning composer and educator Wenchen Qin enjoys one of the most distinguished and influential positions in China’s contemporary music scene with works that have garnered worldwide acclaim. Qin’s unique musical language is influenced by his multicultural background, integrating Eastern and Western elements to create profound spiritual spaces. All of these works are infused with literature, mythology and a fascination with nature. The Cloud River revitalises the sheng – an ancient Chinese instrument – with new playing techniques to depict clouds as a source of boundless imagination. With the sheng also playing a leading role, Poetry of the Land ruminates on how the land provides great inspiration. Key feature: This release joins our previous recording of Wenchen Qin ’s music (Naxos 8.570620): ‘The orchestra plays beautifully and the recording has depth, presence, and brilliance’ ( American Record Guide ).
8.579153 Release date: 23 Aug 2024
Companion titles – 21st Century Chinese Classics 8.570620 | 8.570621 | 8.570628 | 8.579157
Click to listen to Seeking Sound – Pictures of Ling Lun’s Inspiration, Dance Suite for Orchestra: V
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INCLUDES WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS
Ronald PEARL (b. 1954) Ian KROUSE (b. 1956)
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East Meets West Solo Guitar Works Robert Trent, Guitar
East Meets West offers a series of geographical and musical connections that bind the music of Ian Krouse (“One of the most communicative young composers on the music scene today” – Gramophone ) and Ronald Pearl, whose guitar music is performed worldwide. The album includes the first recording in its 2009 revision of Krouse’s Roderick Usher’s “Phantasmion” , as well as the eloquent tone poem, The Little Match Girl , and his version of a Hassidic song. Pearl’s My Name is Red is inspired by Orhan Pamuk’s novel and reveals a range of Islamic influences. Key feature: Gramophone has called Ian Krouse ‘one of the most communicative and intriguing young composers on the music scene today’. His Symphony No. 5 is on Naxos 8.559907: ‘This orchestral album reflects an important aspect of his work as a public composer with a powerfully eclectic commemorative voice’ ( BBC Music Magazine ).
8.559948 Release date: 23 Aug 2024
Companion titles – Ian Krouse, Composer 8.559907 | 8.559877 | 8.559846-47
Click to listen to PEARL, R.: Impromptu
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Idil Biret Solo Edition, Vol. 13 Franz SCHUBERT (1797–1828) Sonata in A Major • Sonata in F Minor Impromptu in G flat Major Op. 90 No.3 Fantasy in C Major “Wanderer” Idil Biret, Piano
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The two wonderful works that bookend Idil Biret’s Schubert disc, composed just three years apart, might almost be said to represent two different Schuberts. Within tautly compressed formal lines, the “Wanderer” Fantasy achieves a monumentality that has rarely been surpassed or even approached in the solo piano medium. The A-major Sonata is written on a relatively modest scale, yet it must be said that in its own way it is just as masterly a creation as the larger Schubert works that were to follow. Laid out in three movements, it is full of the blandly melodious charm that non-Schubertians (if any such unfortunate persons still exist) usually dislike most about Schubert, but that for the happy majority forms an essential element in the personality of this most poetic of composers. At the same time, this beguiling quality is underpinned by an astonishing harmonic richness and formal subtlety… To a superficial ear, Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy sounds much more like a sonata than many an “official” sonata composed after his time. The paradox, however, is only apparent. When Schubert wrote his Fantasy it was, for all its Allegro-Adagio-Scherzo-Finale pattern, still too far from the traditional forms to be called a sonata. If thirty years later Liszt, for example, could with impunity fix the label on a work that has much less in common with conventional notions of sonata form, it was the “Wanderer” Fantasy itself that constituted the most crucial single step along the new path. Bernard Jacobson
8.571333 Release date: 2 Aug 2024
Companion titles – Previous releases in the Idil Biret Solo Edition 8.571340 | 8.571401-02 8.571310 | 8.571302
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