The symphonies date from a more mature period of Darius Milhaud compositional life and confronts the listener with music he or she probably didn't expect if one is familiar with the more bizarre, witty, early music with its many influences by light music, like Le Boeuf sur le Toit and La Creation du Monde. The sixth symphony of Milhaud is definitively his greatest. It contains two slow and two fast movements. The slow movements (2/3rd of the music) are of an astonishing beauty! This music of wide open spaces is full of calmness, austerity, clarity, with beautiful changing harmonies and slowly spiralling melodies. The fast movements make a lively contrast to this.

Thea King's excellent performances transfer well to the new medium. She plays Weber's concerto elegantly and with a nice rhythmic kick to the finale, though taking it a little more slowly than other players has its risks. The usual coupling with Weber's other clarinet concerto is here rejected in favour of a very attractive work hardly known outside the ranks of clarinettists but deserving wider currency. A very agreeable record.

Alun Francis is one of the most respected conductors on the international scene, and is particularly admired for his efforts in bringing international recognition to several great tonal symphonists active in the post-World War II years, and for other efforts on behalf of 20th century music. His "native" instrument is the French horn. He continued his studies on that instrument and took conducting while attending the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1960 to 1963.

When d’Albert appeared in 1881 at one of Hans Richter’s concerts in London he played his own Piano Concerto in A, but the work was never published and has not survived. However, from a review in The Musical Times of November 1881 we can reasonably deduce that the Concerto had the traditional three movements. The reviewer stated that it was ‘uncompromising in its pretensions to rank with the chief of its kind; largely developed, ambitious in style and character, and rigidly observant of classical form, while redundant in matter’.

Despite the vast quantity of his compositions and the popularity he enjoyed during his lifetime, none of the 19 violin concertos of Rodolphe Kreutzer are heard with any great frequency on the modern concert stage. In fact, Kreutzer's name is largely forgotten save for his pedagogical writings and etudes. The liner notes of the CPO album put forth the notion Kreutzer's concertos have not fared as well as those of Brahms, Beethoven, and the like because Kreutzer was not primarily a symphonic composer. Upon hearing the three concertos recorded here (15, 18, and 19), listeners may find some truth to this theory. Compared to the fiery virtuosity and engaging melodies of the solo part, the orchestral tuttis are rather banal.

From the time I first heard Ludwig Thuille's masterly Sextet for Piano and Winds in B-flat Major, Op. 6, thirty years ago, I have wanted to hear more music by this sadly neglected composer, a more traditionalist friend of Richard Strauss. Apart from a meager handful of recordings (quickly out of print) of the Sextet, though, for years nothing else was available. I read that Thuille, apart from large vocal works, and a good deal of chamber music, had written one symphony, the Symphony in F, and at least one piano concerto, and have been watching eagerly over the years, hoping that someone would finally commit them to disc. And at last!

‘An excellent record, beautifully played, splendidly recorded, in every way highly rewarding’ (Gramophone)

While they are popular with clarinetists and some fans of early Romantic music, the three clarinet concertos by Bernhard Henrik Crusell have yet to achieve widespread acclaim outside this small circle of devotees. Conservative in style, predictable in form, and rather limited in expression, Crusell's extant concertos are engaging showpieces for virtuosos, with an agreeable blend of flashy techniques in the Allegros and pretty lyricism in the slow movements, but little more than that.

The most enduring number from this opera was the duet of Maria and her sister Ines, which became a popular concert piece in the 19th century. Maria is the mistress of Pedro the Cruel of Castile. Her father, Ruiz, discovers the identity of her lover and, burdened by shame, loses his reason. Donizetti rises to this dramatic challenge, writing a poignant mad scene – this time for a tenor voice. This was a very successful opera for Donizetti, written in 1841.