The RCO Online

We’ve made a rather significant improvement to our website recently that you may not have noticed – we are now offering online ticket sales! Tickets are now easily ordered for all the Nevada Chamber Music Festival and 2008-2009 season concerts. Just follow this link, or click on the “Buy Tickets” tab at our website.

For those of you who are plugged in to such things, the RCO now also has pages on MySpace and Facebook where you can find out more about the RCO and get special notices on our upcoming concerts and events.

Lastly, we have also set up a page at YouTube where you can take a look at various RCO-related videos. We’ve put our television commercials up, and you can view videos of pieces featured in our upcoming Festival and regular season concerts performed by the likes of David and Igor Oistrakh, Martha Argerich, Claudio Abbado, the Beaux Arts Trio, and others.

Over the last few weeks, we have been spending pretty much all our time in the RCO office preparing for December’s Nevada Chamber Music Festival. Information on the Festival concerts and performers is available at our website, and several hundred season ticket holders and Festival ticket buyers have gotten this information in the mail. We also recently sent Festival details to everyone on our email list; if you’d like to receive regular updates on the RCO’s activities, send us your email address and we’ll get you on the list. A brochure on the Festival will be arriving at thousands of homes in the next week or so, and advertising and announcements will soon be hitting the airwaves on radio and television.

One of our valued RCO regulars made the very good suggestion that Scott Faulkner and I recommend some recordings of the works that will be played in the Festival, as we have occasionally done in the past. This way you can do a little pre-Festival exploring. Or, if you hear something at the Festival that blows you away (which happens pretty frequently!), you can seek out a recording for further future listening.

The CDs that we are recommending are available through many online services. We regularly recommend ArkivMusic as being particularly comprehensive and easy to use. Plus, if you use the links you’ll find below, the RCO will receive a portion of your purchase! So buy early and often.

Some of the works on our Festival are available in a large number of renditions (for instance, ArkivMusic lists over 120 CDs of the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3!) The disks that we are recommending meet one or more of the following criteria: they are ones that Scott or I already have heard and love, and/or they have received considerable critical acclaim, and/or they feature famous performers of the past or present, and/or they include other interesting repertoire, and/or they are reasonably priced.

Hummel – Piano Quintet in E-flat major/minor, Op. 87
One of the few available recordings of this work features the Wanderer Trio and guests, including a great bonus in the form of Schubert’s famous “Trout” Quintet

Ravel – Piano Trio in A minor
Jascha Heifetz, Artur Rubinstein and Gregor Piatigorsky perform both the Ravel Trio and the Respighi Violin Sonata also featured in this year’s Festival.

Brahms – Piano Quartet in A major, Op. 26
We recommend a lovely two-disk set featuring the acclaimed Beaux Arts Trio and violist Walter Trampler.

Bach – Sonata for Solo Violin in G minor
The classic recording of all six of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for violin performed by Nathan Milstein.

Chopin – Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 65
One of our two recommendations for this sonata features the legendary Jacqueline duPre, accompanied by her husband Daniel Barenboim. The other recommendation can be found below.

Respighi – Violin Sonata in B minor
As was mentioned with the Ravel Trio above, we highlight a budget-priced RCA disk with Jascha Heifetz and Artur Rubinstein.

Mendelssohn – Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 49
The Gould Piano Trio performs both of Mendelssohn’s trios on the budget-priced Naxos label.

Janacek – String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata”
A very inexpensive Arte Nova disc by the Alexander Quartet also features quartets by Smetana and Schubert.

Mozart – String Quartet in C major, K. 465 “Dissonance”
A terrific CD that also includes Mozart’s “Hunt” Quartet and Haydn’s “Emperor” Quartet features the Emerson Quartet, one of the finest quartets in the world today.

Dohnanyi – Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 1
One of the few recordings of this work currently available is a fine one on the London label, with pianist Andras Schiff and the Takacz Quartet.

Mozart – Violin Sonata in E-flat major, K. 481
Violinist Henryk Szeryng and pianist Ingrid Haebler are featured in what has long been one of the most esteemed recordings of Mozart’s violin sonatas.

Ligeti – Solo Cello Sonata
We highlight a performance by Matt Haimovitz from his fascinating collection “Goulash” (be sure to check out the version of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” on this CD!)

Debussy – Cello Sonata
Cellist Janos Starker performs a very attractive collection of sonatas and other works, including the Chopin Cello Sonata heard elsewhere in our Festival.

Walton – Violin Sonata
Violinist Daniel Hope and pianist Simon Mulligan take on this seldom heard, dramatic sonata in a much-praised CD.

Dvorak – Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 5
Very dramatic readings of both of Dvorák’s piano quintets, including the famous Op. 81, with pianist Sviatoslav Richter and the Borodin Quartet.

Enescu – String Octet
An ensemble of musicians from the famous Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields performs both the Enescu Octet and the Two Pieces by Shostakovich featured in the Festival’s New Year’s Eve Celebration.

Saint-Saens – Piano Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 41
A somewhat expensive, but enormously attractive, collection of Saint-Saëns chamber works on the Hyperion label performed by England’s Nash Ensemble.

Shostakovich – Prelude and Scherzo for String Octet, Op. 11
Members of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields perform (see the Enescu Octet above).

Vaughan Williams – Piano Quintet in C minor
Once again Hyperion comes through with a very appealing collection of lesser-known, but beautiful, chamber compositions by Vaughan Williams.

Godowsky/Strauss – Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes from Die Fledermaus
Rian de Waal performs a number of Godowsky’s virtuoso transcriptions, including the remarkable Passacaglia on a theme from Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony.

Sarasate – Navarra
Father and son team David and Igor Oistrakh performs a number of showpieces for two violins.

Gliere – Pieces for Violin and Cello, Op. 39
From the CD “Conversations,” the husband-and-wife team of Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson perform a number of works for violin and cello.

Brahms – Hungarian Dances Nos. 17-21
Sisters Katia and Marielle Labeque perform all twenty-one of the Hungarian Dances.

Smetana – The Moldau
While the chamber ensemble arrangement of “The Moldau” isn’t readily available on recordings, we are certainly pleased to recommend our own Theodore Kuchar’s recent recording of the orchestral version, from his much-praised set of Smetana’s complete orchestral works.

Dvorak – Slavonic Dances
Once again, the chamber ensemble arrangement of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances is a rarity and currently unavailable on CD. But the orchestral arrangements have been recorded numerous times, and Christoph von Dohnanyi’s exciting recording with the Cleveland Orchestra features Robert Vernon, our Festival violist.

Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major
With over 100 recordings currently available, there are Brandenburg Concertos to meet every taste. We recommend Neville Marriner’s modern (as opposed to period) instrument recording of the first three concertos with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.