Sgambati was one of the most important figures in the renaissance of Italian music that began during the second half of the 19th century. This first of two discs blends Italian lyricism with German... more

Giovanni Sgambati, a composer admired by Wagner, was the man Busoni predicted would take Italian music 'towards a bright new future'. Sgambati's Symphony No. 2 is a compendium of Austro-Germanic... more

Franco Ferrara' gifts were prodigious. Born in Palermo he was a fine pianist, an even better violinist, playing under Toscanini, and later a conductor whose public performances were curtailed by... more

Alberto Franchetti and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari shared a dual heritage, and all three of the works on this album were written while the composers were respectively in Germany. Late Romantic and cast in... more

Iovanni Sgambati was a favourite student of Liszt and was admired by Wagner. The Piano Concerto in G minor is a heroic work; the Sinfonia festiva is confidently written and inspired by the dance-like... more

This latest disc in the Naxos series of Casella's orchestral music represents what Casella felt was his 'definitive personality'. The Introduction Aria and Toccata epitomizes his 'monumental Baroque... more

These mainly world premiere recordings of five of Malipiero' most characteristic works fill an important gap in the catalogue. The Impressioni dal vero express the composer' feelings amid nature and... more

From mysterious moonlit night to joyous sunlit day, this recording runs the gamut of Alfredo Casella' huge stylistic range. Notte di maggio, composed in the wake of Stravinsky' Rite of Spring, is... more

From the very first notes, with their tolling bells, Casella' Symphony No. 2 is deeply indebted to it's model, Mahler' own Symphony No. 2, whose Parisian premiere was championed by Casella during his... more

This first of four recordings of Alfredo Casella' orchestral music couples his first and last purely orchestral works. Completed the day before his 23rd birthday, the Symphony No. 1, which here... more

Described by Gian Francesco Malipiero as "the beginning of the rebirth of non-operatic Italian music", Martucci' Second Symphony is his masterpiece. Drawing on his abiding love of Brahms and... more

This release couples Gian Francesco Malipiero's two contrasting violin concertos with the world premiere recording of his kaleidoscopic orchestral work Per una favola cavalleresca, evoking legendary... more

• Italian composer Alfredo Catalani is today best remembered for his opera La Wally. • Francesco La Vecchia leads the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma in a program of lesser-known but worthy orchestral... more

The fourth installment of the complete orchestral works O. Respighi include some of his most popular works - the Ancient Airs and Dances and the Rossiniana. Respighi's imaginative use of timbre and... more

Muzio Clementi's four surviving mature symphonies were never published in his lifetime and were rescued from neglect through painstaking reconstruction. His sophisticated use of counterpoint can be... more

Goffredo Petrassi was one of the most important Italian composers of the twentieth century. Beginning with the previously unrecorded Divertimento in C, this release focuses on Petrassi's compositions... more

Muzio Clementi was 'The Father of the pianoforte', a performer, teacher, publisher and manufacturer of pioneering importance. But in addition to the works for piano, he also wrote a series of... more

The revelatory Naxos Casella series continues with two powerful works that grew from the tragedy of two World Wars. Searingly dissonant and 'profoundly human', the Elegia eroica is Casella' memorial... more

Following the success of the previous three volumes in Naxos' Martucci Orchestral Edition, the fourth presents the Italian composer' Piano Concerto No. 2, a spaciously Romantic work whose sweeping... more

The foremost Italian orchestral composer of the late nineteenth century, as well as an accomplished pianist and conductor, Giuseppe Martucci was one of the first of a line of composers, which... more

Goffredo Petrassi's reputation was established in 1932 when his Partita (available on Naxos 8.572411) won critical acclaim. Petrassi then composed his Concerto for Orchestra, the first of eight,... more

Goffredo Petrassi was 28 when his Partita (recorded on Naxos 8.572411) propelled him to European fame. He fused neo-Classicism with more contemporary traits reinforced by his mastery of polyphony,... more

Volume 2 of Petrassi's orchestral works features the rarely heard and recorded Piano Concerto and Flute Concerto. Geofredo Petrassi (1904-2003) was one of the second-generation of Italian modernist... more