We have already highlighted two of this month's new releases – La Fanfare Wagnérienne and JS Bach: Complete Flute Sonatas & Partita – with their own blog posts. Let's explore the other three albums available this month on CD and digital download. As always, click on the images above for links to each title's catalogue page for more information, track listings, and links to find these on Amazon and iTunes.

Manhattan Playboys is an exciting collection of twenty American light orchestra favorites. Ranging from the 1930s onward, this album contains hits from Broadway, Hollywood, and the 'Great American Songbook,' with memorable and beloved works from Richard Rogers, Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Leroy Anderson, and many others (please visit the catalogue page for full track listing).  For over four decades Iain Sutherland has been one of the foremost conductors (and band-leaders) of orchestral 'pops' in the United Kingdom, often conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra on its weekly radio broadcast. Additionally, he has conducted prestigious orchestras all over the UK and Europe, and his own Iain Sutherland Concert Orchestra appears on this album. This is a collection that is sure to please all listeners.

Antonín Dvořák is one of the founding figures of Czech/Bohemian nationalist music, and is perhaps the greatest example of the Czech national style. though his compositions are firmly rooted within the idiom of the Western Classical tradition, he absorbs and borrows from the folk traditions of his native Bohemia (now roughly the Czech Republic) and discovers novel ways to integrate this vernacular into his works in both theme and composition. His first great success came with his first suite of Slavonic Dances, eight lively orchestral pieces that borrow deeply from Slavic folk music. The thirteen-part solo-piano suite Poetic Tone Pictures (Poetické nálady) follows this example, incorporating nationalist elements into this piano suite. The titles are generally self explanatory ranging from the opening folk-like depiction of a road at night and the joyous Furiant national dance (No 7) to the darker mood of the Old Castle (No 3), the grandiose Hero’s Grave and the solemn chorale-like remembrances of the final Holy Mountain. Paired with Poetic Tone Pictures on this album is Theme & Variations (Op. 36), one of Dvořák's longest single-movement compositions for solo piano. It consists of the opening theme in the tempo of a Minuet, which is then followed by eight variations in different moods ranging from the minor key (variation 3) through the Moravian folk style (4) and dramatic octave passages (5) to the final fugue-like variation with its dramatic mood, leading to a peaceful conclusion.  These works are performed by renown Czech pianist Radoslav Kvapil, who has appeared on many releases for our alto imprint and has been praised by The Kennedy Center as "a magician on the keyboard."  He is a significant authority on Czech modernist/nationalist music, and the works of Dvořák and his contemporaries are an important part of his repertoire (see here).

Widely regarded as Denmark's greatest composer, Carl Nielsen is best known for his symphonies and opera works. Of these, perhaps the most well-known and highly-regarded is his Symphony No. 4, subtitled "The Inextinguishable," (more closely "life-force" in Danish) referring to what Nielsen describes as "the elemental will to live." Written during the course of World War I, it is a powerful and challenging meditation on the human struggle for survival amidst the backdrop of such conflict.  The work is thrilling and altogether dramatic, and this legendary 1974 performance by the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ole Schmidt stands as perhaps the finest version ever recorded. The Fourth Symphony is paired on the album with the unorthodox (but highly enjoyable and well-received) Fifth.  This recording session of the Nielsen symphony cycle established Schmidt's position as a foremost authority on his fellow Dane's repertoire.  These recordings are lauded by Gramophone magazine and the Penguin Guide and received a Three-Star rating by the latter.  This album will be a cherished addition to any music collection, as this stellar recording captures the LSO at its best.

A brand-new recording of the complete Johann Sebastian Bach compositions for flute! This two-disc set (or double-length download album) contains all of the Bach Flute Sonatas (BWV 1030-1035) as well as the Partita in A Minor for solo flute (BWV 1020), which comprise all of Bach's works written to highlight this most ancient of instruments.

English flutist Jennifer Stinton is one of the foremost flutists performing and recording today. The range of her repertoire is immense, ranging from the earliest Classical compositions by Bach and Vivaldi to the most contemporary pieces from the twenty-first century. (For more on this, please click here.) She has frequently collaborated on recordings with harpsichordist David Wright and cellist Guy Johnston, who accompany her on all the sonatas on this album.  These new digital recordings are brilliant and the performances are flawless, making this album a reference-quality acquisition.  It surely will be reviewed very favorably and will be an excellent addition to any music collection.

Please click on the cover image above (or here) to visit the catalogue page for this album, or click on the links below to find it online.

Between 1894 and 1909, Belgian composer Paul Gilson penned a six-piece suite for large brass ensemble, La Fanfare Wagnérienne. These works were inspired by the model for brass instrumentation created by Richard Wagner with The Ring Cycle just decades prior. In terms of style and thematic elements La Fanfare Wagnérienne was certainly wide-ranging and was an achievement in the burgeoning brass genre, one of the first important compositions for brass. This suite was performed until 1912, and was subsequently lost in its original form for almost ninety years, until it was rediscovered and reconstructed by English trombonist and conductor Eric Crees.

Eric Crees is Principal Trombone at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and served as director of London Symphony Orchestra Brass for many years regularly conducting them at the Barbican Centre. He laboriously researched the original Gilson manuscripts and wrote the individual parts, often for authentic but obsolete nineteenth-century Wagnerian horns (a process that he describes at length in his editorial procedure guide here). Crees conducted the first performance of this suite since 1912 with the Guildhall Brass Ensemble of the legendary and prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, this album recorded in early 2011 in Guildhall Music Hall, the first time that these works have ever been recorded!

This suite will surely become a fixture of brass repertoire in the coming years, and this spectacular and rousing recording will stand as an important document in its history. The CD booklet contains a great deal more detail on the performers and the work itself, and much information and links to purchase this album can be found on the product page for this album by clicking the cover artwork above or by clicking here.

Chopin Piano Works (The VoxBox Edition) is now available for digital download on iTunes and Amazon.com. This 11-hour compilation features nearly every work for piano composed by Frederic Chopin, with performances by piano masters and luminaries Abbey Simon, Ivan Moravec, Walter Klien, Grant Johannesen, and Michael Ponti. Please click here for more information, including a listing of works included in this collection, or click on the buttons below to find this on iTunes and Amazon.

Please listen to this medley sampler from this set, with performances by the great Abbey Simon.

We have just released two new big digital "box sets" at amazing prices! Also, we are proud to present four new single-album releases that are likewise exclusive to our digital vendors.

101 Opera Classics is a "greatest hits" of opera and is available for a limited time only for $1.09 on Amazon.com (regular price $4.99). It features all the greatest and best-known opera arias, duets, and choruses combined into one great package. Chopin Piano Works (The VoxBox Edition) gathers from the Vox Records archives almost every work that Chopin composed for piano, performed by legendary pianists including Abbey Simon and Ivan Moravec, an absolute steal at $5.99. Click on the covers above for more information on these titles and links to purchase these great sets.

Our four single-album releases are a very diverse group covering hundreds of years of music. Brass in Battle features eighteen themes from war movies, military songs and marches, and other military music, including The Dambusters March, "Jupiter" from Holst's Planets suite, the R.A.F. March, and many others performed by the English Brass Consort and organist Kevin Bowyer, lead by conductor Neil Taylor. Another album of 20th-century music, Palm Court Music: "Grand Hotel" captures a vintage performance of the BBC Grand Hotel Orchestra live at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, East Sussex. The seventeen tracks on this album are all classics from the Golden Age of Light Music, including film themes and other light orchestra favorites, for splendid enjoyment and refined relaxation.

Turning back the clock several centuries, we have Johann Sebastian Bach's masterpiece for the keyboard, The Goldberg Variations, performed by esteemed English harpsichordist David Ponsford. Nearly three hundred years after they were first published, this work still stands as one of the absolute triumphs of music for the keyboard. Early Music Portraits is a collection of works from 17th- and 18th-century England and Germany, presented by acclaimed conductor and composer Christopher Ball and the Praetorius Consort. The album begins with nine Elizabethan-era "portraits" of characters and individuals, composed by such musical luminaries as John Dowland and William Byrd, followed by Erasmus Widmann's Portraits in Music suite, selections from John Maynard's Twelve Wonders of the World, and closes with Georg Philipp Telemann's Trio Sonata in C.

Whatever you like in music, one or more of these exciting new releases will fit your tastes! Click on the cover images for each album for more information, tracking, and links to find these through our digital vendors.