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This will be available soon!
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/religious-tetralogy/hnum/8952908

Reminders:

Remember those Flemish LPs with Benoit's cantatas "Rubens" and "De Schelde" and "Requiem"?

Benoit's "Hig Mass" was also available later on Discover and on Etcetera CDs:
https://www.amazon.de/Benoit-Hohe-Messe-Rahbari/dp/B00009LW2B/ref=sr_1_26?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&keywords=peter+benoit&qid=1553586560&s=music-classical&sr=1-26
(a reissue combination of previous recordings)

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/the-delightful-companion/hnum/7794184

Martin Brabbins' recording of "De Schelde" is separately available from amazon music:
https://www.amazon.de/Schelde-Martyn-Brabbins/dp/B00P1TC56M/ref=sr_1_6?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=peter+benoit&qid=1553586355&s=music-classical&sr=1-6

Benoit's Flute and Piano Concertos on Marco Polo:
https://www.amazon.de/Klavierkonzert-Flötenkonz-Devos/dp/B000004654/ref=sr_1_17?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&keywords=peter+benoit&qid=1553586560&s=music-classical&sr=1-17

This is the 18th recording (so far) of this magnificent work (I have them all in my collection):

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Mar/Busoni_PC_MYR024.htm

I fully agree with the MusicWeb reviewer: What a loud and wild intrerpretation! Although I admire Kirill Gerstein, I never thought he would throw himself into this work in such a rather respectless and rough way. He creates a loud, extravert showpiece - and nothing more. The slow movement is acceptable, in a way, but there too, the orchestzra sounds rather uninspired.
Oramo's conducting is unsensitive and does not respect the noble and transcendetal aspects of this piece. He has a rather cheap idea about Busoni.
Incidentally, I fear that no producer/balance engineer, soloist or conductor of this work really know that Busoni had intended the male chorus of the last movement to remain invisible - or at least sound as it would be so. Also in this recording, the chorus is too much present (and too loud).
What a pity! And this with the Boston Symphony!
This single slipcase CD is accompanied by a (separate) lavish booklet with excellent articles and great photos of Busoni.
The "old" interpretations by John Ogdon and Peter Donohoe remain, in my opinion, the top class one! But we already had a topic on this subject earlier on...

Another "unsung" Swiss recommendation!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile-Robert_Blanchet
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Blanchet-Emile.htm

https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Blanchet,_Emile-Robert

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Blanchet+Emile

He wrote very beautiful and virtuoso music for the piano. There is a historical CD with the composer performing solo pieces and his "Concertstück No.1" (conducted by Ansermet), which, unfortunately has become very difficult to find. On Yotube you can find Clara Haskil performing the Concertstück, conducted by Thomas Beecham.

Adalberto Riva also recorded 4 of his pieces on a Anthology CD of Swiss piano music - with a very interesting program:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8079724--swiss-piano-works

This is the first volume of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze's complete works for piano, played by the excellent Adalberto Maria Riva:

https://toccataclassics.com/product/emile-jaques-dalcroze-piano-music-volume-one/

This fabulous universal musician died yesterday. He can be compared to Leonard Bernstein.
As a conductor of classical music he was excellent. His Rachmaninov, Korngold and Vaughan Williams recordings are great. I also liked him as a pianist and as a composer.
And I will never forget his quasi-totally improvised guest appearance in the 1971 Grieg Piano Concerto sketch of the Morecambe & Wise TV show :-)

The Box will look like this and be available from April 1st.

https://www.mediafire.com/view/64t2ueo2qwamcy4/BRILLIANT%20CLASSICS%2095784%20-%20Fritz%20Brun%20-%20Complete%20Orchestral%20works.jpg

This is now available on the Pentatone label, but in the booklet there is no detailed comparison of this and the latter official "Petipa version".
Vladimir Jurowski conducts the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia "Evgeny Svetlanov". Will listen it these days and come back later. It's a live recording of a concert performance, so we do not have any trampling noises...
Looking at all this autum's new CD issues, one could not think that this medium is going to die...

Some forthcoming/ new issues:

Giulio Briccialdi
https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/b/briccialdi-flute-concertos/

José Arriola
https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/j/jos%C3%A9-arriola-orchestral-music/

Wilhelm Kempff
https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/k/kempff-chamber-music/

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/c/castelnuovo-tedesco-music-for-violin-and-piano/

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/w/wolf-ferrari-the-two-piano-trios/

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520268067/on-russian-music

There is a really "hot" article in Richard Taruskin's highly recommendable book "On Russian Music", exposing the "musicologist's frauds" connected to that 1998 3CD Schwann box "Tchaikovsky - The Four Piano Concertos etc. Unabridged Original Versions". I remember we mentioned it in one of our earlier postings. Taruskin also criticizes conductor Fedoseyev in general - and also the booklet authors.

This is an incredible source and contribution - a really challenging and exciting book. I discover it only now and, I must say, it's about time such discussable enterprises are unveiled. In another chapter, Taruskin also questions many statements in Davis Brown's Tchaikovsky biography (including the eternal discussions on the composer's real death). The book contains 36 articles and has 407 pages.

Anyone in this forum wanting to know more, can write me a message. For copyright reasons I do not dare to reproduce this 12-page article in here.

This will be this year's Monpellier-Radio France production (with broadcast):

http://lefestival.eu/evenements/246-186-Kassya,l'opérainachevé

- with an excellent cast and conductor!

On 11th July they also have a production of Offenbach's "La Périchole" conducted by Marc Minkowski:

http://lefestival.eu/evenements/236-182-LaPérichole-Minkowski

This highly recommendable low price re-issue is a monument!

https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/de/cat/4799983

At last those excellent Koch-Schwann recordings (made between 1980 and 1993) are available again! A 12-CD box with a thin booklet, but today, there is enough internet info on Max Reger.

One could start this theme (if it's welcomed) with this example:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Judex-DVD-Region-US-NTSC/dp/B0001Y4MJA/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1523435524&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=judex+feuillade

In this excellently remastered version of Feuillade's silent crime series of 1915 (of which I am a great fan), composer Robert Israel created an excellent soundtrack, made of (orchestral) arragements and pastiches of different Romantic pieces (including the theme of Alkan's Etude VIII, op. 39 as a main title and thorough leitmotif). The 10th and 12th episode of this series has Raff's Adagio from "Lenore" as an accompaniment of paceful family life scenes.

Very  happy to see that this CD is available now, I have just ordered a copy and I am sure it will be great!

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Feb/Raff_PC_GP771.htm

Highly recommendable!

http://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/a/alkan-edition/

Additionally to that 2004 Naxos issue:
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557482

there is now an excellent new CD with:
https://www.europadisc.co.uk/classical/133991/Ordonez_-_Symphonies.htm

Another very important issue, although it's music composed in the 1940s:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Aug/VW_Scott_CDLX7340.htm

In the 1980 I had corresponded with Ursula Vaughan Williams, since I wanted to reconstruct and record this score myself. She replied (in a letter dated 8.8.88) that such a thing should not have to be done!

Just wonder from where Dutton can raise the funds for such productions in such difficult times!

I feel like a frustraded prophet...

Remember the unsatisfatory download from the radio? This production is now available!
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Aug/Donizetti_Rosmonda_57757.htm
So let's hope a CD will also be produced!

After Guild have closed down their Switzerland Office, Guild UK have decided to cancel their Swiss catalogue, including my 9 Fritz Brun CDs - this with immediate effect.
I am dealing now with the take-over by another label (preferably in the form of a boxed bargain edition, including the Sterling issue of the 3rd Symphony as well). Since these CDs were all commissioned productions, all rights remain with the sponsor, which is the Brun estate.
Keep your fingers crossed with me that this deal will be successful!

http://www.theatersg.ch//spielplan/loreley
6 performances conducted by the (excellent) Stefan Blunier. He surely makes this rather boring opera more lively...
Of course, optically transposed into today's times - the easiset way of create a new staging.

I am happy to report that a couple of weeks ago I have finished recording my 3rd Jaques-Dalcroze CD; this time with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. As a most important discovery, it will contain his expressionistic cycle for soprano and orchestra "Tragédie d'amour" - a work of immense beauty and tense atmosphere, which can stand alongside other French cycles with orchestra like Chausson's "Poème de l'amour et de la mer". In 1906, when it was premiered in Switzerland, its realism and daring subject (a woman kills the murderer of her lover - using the same knife) caused a shock. The poems were written by the composer. At the premiere, soprano Nina Faliero (Jaques-Dalcroze's wife - Switzerland's first interpreter of Mahler and Strauss) performed and the composer conducted. So far, no other performances could be reported. Musically, it is a very difficult score and has rhymthmically very odd passages in which 5/8 alternate with 6 and 8/8, or are interpolated by 3/4 and 2/4. The orchestra is normal-sized, the instrumentation remains always trasparent, erupting to short violent "crisis" moments only occasionally. The seventh (and last) song has a longer orchestral postlude.
The work has never published; I conducted from manuscript copies and using the premiere's instrumental parts - and I also had to edit a new vocal score.
For this recording I am more that happy having been able to convince my friend Elena Mosuc to perform. And with her maginficent voice she has done an incredible interpretation. Since years I dreamed having her to perform this. The atmosphere in the studio was also very tense and creative. Listening to the first editing I can say that we have created a very good performance.
On the same CD there will be a wonderful orchestral suite entitled "La Veillée" ("The Vigil") and the brilliant overture to Jaques-Dalcroze's opera "Sancho", from which I have already recorded years ago the ballet suite.
I am editing now a video clip on this project, it will be available in two weeks. For the moment I only have this:
https://www.bratislavarecording.com/single-post/2017/04/27/The-BSO-record-with-the-world-famous-singer-Elena-Mosuc
It will be decided only in June on which label this will be issued.
And I am also happy to report that my CD with Martin Scherber's First Symphony will be definitely issued by Sterling and available in autumn.
But - sadly - it looks as these two (my 48th and 49th) will be my very last recordings as a conductor... I cannot find any more sponsors supporting remaining projects.