Few other composers’ music enjoys such enormous popularity and is as frequently performed on stages worldwide and recorded as that of Antonín Dvořák. And it is the symphonic works that are connected with his name most often. The new Supraphon eight-disc box features several complete sets and encompasses Dvořák’s most significant symphonic pieces. Alongside the Symphonic Poems and Concert Overtures, Supraphon is releasing for the first time on CD Václav Neumann’s sensitively remastered 1972-74 analogue recordings of the complete symphonies (until now, only the digital recordings from the 1980s had been released on CD). Václav Neumann linked up to the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra’s bold Dvořák tradition in the wake of his illustrious predecessors Václav Talich and Karel Ančerl and developed it in sonic colourfulness and romantic sweep.

Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667 – 20 July 1752), also known as John Christopher Pepusch and Dr Pepusch, was a German-born composer who spent most of his working life in England. Pepusch was born in Berlin. At the age of 14, he was appointed to the Prussian court. About 1700, he settled in England where he was one of the founders, in 1726, of The Academy of Vocal Music, which around 1730/1 was renamed The Academy of Ancient Music. In Joseph Doane's Musical directory for the year 1794, the founding of the Academy is discussed; on page 76, Doane states that: In the year 1710 (memorable for Handel’s first appearance among us) a number of the most eminent composers and performers in London [agreed] to concert a plan of an Academy for the study and practice of Vocal and Instrumental Music, which was no sooner announced than it met the countenance and support of the principal persons of rank.

Few ensembles can come to Bach's St John Passion with quite the degree of performance-based insight that Gardiner and his musicians have done. Written for Good Friday in 1724, the passion was the centrepiece of Bach's year-long cycle of liturgical cantatas. Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir spent 2000 performing and recording these surrounding cantatas, before recording this disc in 2003. The result is a little slice of musical heaven. In sound, it's a masterpiece of technical precision and musical beauty. In tone, it perfectly balances the theatrical with the devotional. The English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir expertly build and release tension, their phrases shaped to sound natural, instinctive, and emotionally complete. The work's many dramatic contrasts are also brilliantly done.

Volume 8 of our complete Brahms songs proves the ideal platform for Harriet Burns in her debut album. As usual, Graham Johnson’s scholarly booklet notes are an indispensable companion.

Hélène Grimaud made her first five CDs for the Denon label, when the pianist was in her mid-teens through early 20s. Brilliant Classics has reissued them as a super-bargain boxed set. Even in her formative years, Grimaud’s world-class pianism and first-rate musical mind seemed fully sprung. Listen as she fearlessly tears through Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata, or notice the way she brings out the symphonic underpinnings of the same composer’s Op. 33 Etudes-Tableaux and Liszt’s Dante Sonata and you won’t doubt that a mature artist is at work. She makes Chopin’s G minor Ballade colorful and exciting by playing it as the composer intended, rather than re-writing his dynamics, phrasings, and ritards. Sonically, her 1992 Rachmaninov Second scores over her later traversal on Erato (see my review by typing Q3366 in Search Reviews), while fans of her terrific Erato Ravel Concerto should find the earlier Denon version equally incisive and commanding.

In these works, written for the Chapel Royal, Lully is inspired to paint a whole sweep of emotions, at once melancholy, sweet, tragic, noble and victorious. Observe his mastery of color. Listen to how choral and orchestral textures, now in five, now in ten parts, change with the rhythm of the text. Note how subtle touches of orchestral color highlight the meaning of a word or the sweetness of a modulation.

Heinichen’s last Mass, composed in the style of the high baroque as a ”number mass,“ is imposing as a result of its architectonic force and its inexhaustible originality. The basis for the brilliant, festive character of Bach's Magnificat is the scoring for trompets, timpani and a choir which here is expanded to five voices.

Before the early 20th century, any list of significant Western composers would have included Benedetto Marcello. Through his advocacy of a return to the proportional values and simplicity of ancient Roman civilization, he helped set the stage for the Classical era in Western music, soon to unseat the aesthetic norms of the Baroque in which he lived.

The Gramophone Award-winning Silesian Quartet present a double-album of the complete works for string quartet by compatriot Henryk Gorecki. All three of his numbered string quartets were written late in life – the first in 1988 – and all three were commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. The First Quartet is a single-movement work, based on a sixteenth-century song by Wacław of Szamotuły.

Celebrated violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter introduces a new concerto by her friend and frequent collaborator John Williams, with the legendary composer himself conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Composed especially for Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Williams's Violin Concerto No. 2 is the culmination of several years of collaboration and friendship between two of the world's most celebrated musical artists.

Harnoncourt hat mit dieser wunderbaren Aufnahme etwas nicht nur Ergreifendes, sondern auch ganz Wunderbares geschaffen. Die Johannes-Passion, die ja viel dramatischer ist als die vier Jahre später entstandene Matthäus-Passion, interpretiert er so packend und mitreißend, dass einem besonders bei den "Turbae"-Chören eine Gänsehaut über den Rücken läuft.

The music of the Court of Dresden is of special interest to Hans-Christoph Rademann and his two Dresden ensembles. Johann David Heinichen’s Missa No.11 is presented in a manner in which the musicians can display the entire majestic sound of this festive court music from the baroque era.

Although all of the quartet's original members with the exception of violist Josef Kluson have moved on since its 1972 founding, the Prazák Quartet has maintained many of its original traditions. For starters, the Prazák Quartet has long distinguished itself as an ensemble almost obsessed with technical precision. From its earliest recordings to the present, intonation, articulation, balance, phrasing, and even the matching of vibrato have been among its trademarks. All of these technical proficiencies have never come at the expense of musical integrity. Quite the contrary, in fact; the performances are typically quite passionate and musically sating.

In her fine Gramophone Award-winning debut disc (of Pieces de clavecin by Jacquet de la Guerre), Carole Cerasi brought a sparkling immediacy and character to music usually the esoteric domain of a minority. Now, she turns her attention to six sonatas by CPE Bach in another recital of natural flair and discernment. The achievement is perhaps all the more striking in that this Bach son is an especially tricky customer: his light, unpredictable sensibilities depend on a strong undercurrent of logical reference, mainly a rhythmic and contrapuntal presence inherited from his father. Strong artistic instincts are the critical adhesive.

Ristori was born in Bologna and after some success with the Venetian opera, went to Dresden in 1715. From the 1720s he was responsible, along with Heinichen and Zelenka, for the music at the religious services at the Catholic court. He was appointed as church composer after Zelenka died. The first work on this CD was composed for the Royal Chapel and he second was written for teaching figured bass.