Netrebko rings in next stage of career with new album.

Australian composers Kirsten Milenko and Alex Vaughan received Roche Young Commissions in 2019; next week their pieces premiere at the Lucerne Festival.

Collected symphonies, a Spanish “pianist’s pianist”, and another win for Respighi.

Chailly brings untiring energy to this musical curio, but is it enough?

Stravinsky premiere heads a disc that perhaps lacks a Firebird.

It’s unusual to find an A-list conductor like Riccardo Chailly recording such (generally)  obscure music on an equally A-list label. Good for him! A few years ago he recorded a CD of some of Verdi’s non-operatic obscurities and this release co-incides with his arrival at La Scala, where 11 of these works were premiered. I didn’t find any neglected gems, but there are no duds either and the La Scala orchestra is wonderfully idiomatic in this fare. The programme is well arranged, with plenty of contrast between succeeding tracks and serves to demonstrate the development of the overture throughout the 19th century and on into the 20th. The earliest work here is Rossini’s Overture to La Pietra del Paragone (1812) (aka the overture to Tancredi) which illustrates the then typical slow introduction followed by a rowdy allegro, which was succeeded by examples like Verdi’s Overture to Il Finto Stanislao (1840) – still a real romp – and Bellini’s more famous Norma (1831), both of which could be termed  typical “medley” overtures, offering snatches of themes from the operas ahead. Chailly and his orchestra are especially impressive in the Norma. (They’re also alive to every nuance in the Madama Butterfly Act…