The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's latest Naxos outing is assured of a niche audience - punters determined to have every orchestral transcription of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The arranger here is Peter Breiner who also conducts the performance, with bonus orchestral versions of the composer's Songs and Dances of
Classic CD: Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
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Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition.
In the meantime, New Zealand fortepianist Kemp English has released the first set of what will eventually comprise the complete 47 keyboard sonatas of Leopold Kozeluch (1747-1818).
English may promise Beethovenian storms to come in later works, but the first four on this disc are firmly in an 18th-century classical mould. Comparisons with Haydn and Mozart are inevitable and, here and there, the Czech composer has moments of startling invention.
Those familiar with Mozart's piano sonatas may well wonder whether the opening movement of his K333 was influenced by the Cantabile in the second of Kozeluch's sonatas.
English, playing a modern American replica of a classic Walter instrument, shows enviable drive and flamboyance in the fast movements, even if slow movements seem a little emotionally stark. One waits with impatience for Sonata 20, when English plays an instrument by New Zealander Paul Downie.