NMC MID-LENGTH

	ROBERT SAXTON Label: NMC MID-LENGH 102 Our Price: $31.50 Quantity in Basket: none
I WILL AWAKE THE DAWN & OTHER WORKS Caritas; Violin Concerto; In The Beginning; I will awake the dawn; Music to celebrate the Resurrection Tasmin Little, violin; BBC Singers/John Poole; English Chamber Orchestra/Steuart Bedford; BBC Symphony Orchestra/Matthias Bamert; English Northern Philharmonia/Diego Masson The acclaimed Ancora series of re-issues continues with a 2-disc set of music by the respected British composer Robert Saxton. Orchestral and vocal works feature alongside the Violin Concerto, performed by renowned soloist Tasmin Little, and Saxton’s opera Caritas. (2 CDs)
	HOLLOWAY Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 015 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
SECOND CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA; OLIVER KNUSSEN, COND.
	SMALLEY Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 017 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
PULSES; BBC S.O./BERNAS
	TURNAGE Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 024 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
ON ALL FOURS; LAMENT; SARABANDE; NASH ENSEMBLE/KNUSSEN
	LLOYD Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 046 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
SYMPHONY NO. 4; BBC S.O./BRABBINS
	BUTLER Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 047 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
MIXED DOUBLES; O RIO; BBC S.O./BRABBINS/TAMAYO
	ELGAR-PAYNE Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 052 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
SYM. # 3: COMMENTARY/SKETCHES; A. PAYNE, COMMENTARY; BBC, ET AL.
	BURT Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 063 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
UND GOTT DE HERR SPRACH; SOLOISTS; UNITED PHIL.,VIENNA
	THEA MUSGRAVE: Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 074 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
HELIOS AND OTHER WORKS: The Seasons (Autumn, Winter, Spring & Summer); Helios; Night Music; Memento Vitae - Nicolas Daniel, oboe; Scottish Chamber Orchestra/ Nicholas Kraemer; BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Jac van Steen - The first release in NMC's new Ancora series showcases the orchestral works of Thea Musgrave, who celebrates her 75th birthday in 2003. An Ancora+ release, the disc includes reissued recordings of oboe concerto Helios plus Night Music and The Seasons, with a new recording of Memento Vitae by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Jac van Steen - the Orchestra's 25th release on NMC. Helios, written for and premiered by soloist Nicholas Daniel and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, takes the form of a musical journey: the oboe represents the Greek God Helios' sun-chariot, moving from pre-dawn darkness through a stormy scherzo -featuring a concertante group of woodwind, horn and trumpet - ending in the distant rippling of the ocean stream, as Helios completes his Journey round the world. Night Music, described by the composer as a "dream landscape", spans a series of quickly-changing moods in which two solo horns conduct a dialogue, sometimes conflicting, sometime conciliatory, as the players move away from and towards each other on the stage. Memento Vitae was commissioned for the bicentennial of Beethoven's birth in 1970 - as its numerous quotations from the composer's music suggest. Its stormy atmosphere, evoked by the tempest in Beethoven's Pastoral' Symphony, is succeeded by the calm of "Dona Nobis Pacem" from the Missa Solemnis. Finally, The Seasons takes a series of paintings related to the four seasons as a metaphor for the cycles in the life of man: following the menacing storms of Autumn and frozen melancholy of Winter, Spring brings a romantic vision of rebirth. Summer rounds off the work in jubilant and revolutionary mood, with quotations from both the Marseillaise and Star-Spangled Banner. The Ancora series has been made possible by funding from the Arts Council of England.
	JOHN BULLER: Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 081 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
Proença; The Theatre of Memory - Sarah Walker, mezzo; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Mark Elder, conductor. - Proença sets the lyrics of Troubadour songs - the pop music of the 11th and 12th centuries - for orchestra and two soloists: mezzo-soprano (here sung by acclaimed artist Sarah Walker) and electric guitar. The lyrics, in the Old French language of Provençal, deal not only with the standard troubadour subjects of love and music, but, at the end of the work, with the 13th-century massacre of so-called heretics by the powers of the Catholic church. The inspiration for The Theatre of Memory lies in two related ideas: the ancient Greek art of improving the memory; and a "memory theatre" designed by the Renaissance philosopher Giulio Camillo for the French king. Modelled on a Greek seven-tiered amphitheatre, the number seven also related to the number of planets, whose characteristics were represented through images in the tiers of the memory theatre. In the piece, the number seven is central to its structure - it is formed of seven dramatic episodes, and features seven solo players in the role of Greek chorus. Both works are performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Mark Elder. This disc has been issued with funding from Arts Council England.
	HUGH WOOD: Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 082 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
HUGH WOOD: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 17; Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 12. Manoug Parikian, violin; Moray Welsh, cello; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; David Atherton, conductor. - For the second release in the New Ancora series, NMC is proud to announce the reissue of two major works from Hugh Wood, whose Symphony and Scenes from Comus, recorded on NMC, were nominated for a 2002 Gramophone Award: these are the Violin and Cello Concertos, previously issued on the Unicorn-Kanchana label. The Cello Concerto, with acclaimed soloist Moray Welsh, is concentrated into a single movement; full of vigorous and dramatic orchestral writing, it nevertheless ends in elegiac mood with a quotation from Elgar's Cello Concerto. The Violin Concerto is performed by its dedicatee, Armenian violinist Manoug Parikian; its three movements center on a mercurial scherzo, bearing the cryptic title "flame, sword, flower". Both concertos are here performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmnic Orchestra under David Atherton.
	DAVID MATTHEWS: Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 084 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
DAVID MATTHEWS: Symphony No. 4. East of England Sinfonia/Malcolm Nabarro. Cantiga; Introit; September Music. Jill Gomez, soprano; Bournemouth Sinfonietta/John Carewe. David Matthews' Cantiga -' song' in Portuguese - sets the tragic, bloodthirsty story of Spanish noblewoman Inês de Castro, who in the 14th century fell in love with, and secretly married, the heir to the Portuguese throne. After her murder by her rivals at the court, the grief-stricken king ordered her body to be exhumed and set on the throne. Cantiga is sung here by soprano Jill Gomez - who inspired and commissioned the work - with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta conducted by John Carewe; the Sinfonietta also performs the short orchestral works September Music and Introit. David Matthews' Symphony No.4, though scored for a Haydnesque chamber orchestra, subverts its classical model: its five movements include an opening using the medieval idea of alternating polyphony with plainsong, and a tango. Performed by the East of England Orchestra under Malcolm Nabarro.
	RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT; MICHOLAS MAW Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 085 Our Price: $19.00 Quantity in Basket: none
RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT: Spells MICHOLAS MAW: Life Studies* The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields/Sir Neville Marriner* Jane Manning, soprano; The Bach Choir The Philharmonia Orchestra/Sir David Willcocks NMC is pleased to announce another release in its successful Ancora series of re-issues. The composers and performers on this release make it an important re-issue for 2006, which marks the 70th birthday of both these well-known British composers. The two composers are firm friends, having first met as students at the Royal Academy of Music in 1955, but could not be more different in many ways musically. Whilst Maw has written a succession of richly conceived large-scale works, in a style which he achieved after rejecting the avant-garde music Bennett has been involved with, the latter now has a dazzlingly diverse career encompassing film scores, jazz pieces and as a cabaret performer as well as the serial concert music which he started writing after studies with Boulez in Paris.
	JOHN CASKEN: Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 086 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
JOHN CASKEN: Darting the Skiff; Maharal Dreaming; Cello Concerto; Vaganza. Heinrich Schiff, cello/director; Northern Sinfonia/John Casken. The Cello Concerto was written for soloist Heinrich Schiff, who also directs the Northern Sinfonia. The soloist assumes the lyrical role of a figure in a wintry landscape, evoked by the composer's words: "From winter's tree/ on folds of stone/ through silvern air." Maharal Dreaming, a vivid orchestral fantasy based on Casken's opera Golem, draws upon the dreams of the rabbi Maharal, who illicitly created life in the form of the Golem; in retribution, the Golem turned upon those he was designed to protect. Theatrical and exuberant, Vaganza uses an organ to create a fairground atmosphere, inspired by Stravinsky's Petrushka and culminating in "an inebriated Chaucerian procession". The last work on this disc, Darting the Skiff, was written for the strings of Northern Sinfonia, and combines still reflective passages with jazzy energetic outbursts; it was inspired by the movement of boats and the glance of light on the water of Lake Como. The Ancora series has been made possible by funding from Arts Council England.
	NIGEL OSBORNE Label: NMC MID-LENGTH 087 Our Price: $15.75 Quantity in Basket: none
NIGEL OSBORNE: I am Goya; The Sickle; Remembering Esenin; Concerto for Flute and Chamber Orchestra. Stephen Varcoe, baritone; Duke Dobing, flute; Jane Manning, soprano; Florian Kitt, cello; Peter Hill, piano; City of London Sinfonia; Richard Hickox, conductor. The common inspiration these works on this disc is the poetry of Sergei Esenin and his compatriots Vladimir Mayakovsky and Andrei Voznesensky. In I am Goya, baritone Stephen Varcoe portrays Voznesensky's ghastly images of war and suffering in the winter of 1941.The Sickle, for solo soprano and ensemble, contrasts the nostalgia of Esenin - a bohemian, mystic and drunkard, who described his homeland as "wooden Russia" - with the revolutionary fervour of Mayakovsky; the soloist is Jane Manning, who has appeared on numerous NMC releases. The Sickle's companion piece, Remembering Esenin for cello and piano, is Osborne's musical portrayal of the man who eventually took his life in a hotel room in 1925, leaving a farewell poem written in his own blood. Finally, the Flute Concerto, featuring soloist Duke Dobing, contrasts a neo-classical, tonal style with motifs taken from I am Goya. The City of London Sinfonia is conducted on this disc by Richard Hickox, its Artistic Director and founder.