If that's the case, maybe the rest of it deserves neglect. As this is only the second such d'Albert collection from Markl, one assumes the conductor chose some of the best of d'Albert's music to record. All of them appear to fall squarely in the Romantic idiom, and none of them seem to me particularly memorable. Maestro Markl begins the program with three brief overtures and two preludes. While I can't say I fell in love with any of them-and it's probably no accident that much of the fellow's music fell into neglect-I didn't dislike any of the material, either, most of it varied and tuneful enough to maintain my interest. On the present album, conductor Jun Markl and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra provide a variety of the man's overtures, preludes, and suites. Then, showing musical talent, d'Albert won a scholarship to study in Austria, where he stayed for a while before moving to Germany, there studying with Franz Liszt and starting a career as a concert pianist.Īpparently, he was all the rage as a virtuoso pianist, but he also produced a prodigious number of musical compositions including twenty-one operas and numerous orchestral and chamber works. In this case it's Eugen Francois Charles d'Albert (1864 - 1932), a Scottish-born German composer and pianist who got his early education in Scotland before moving to London in his later youth. What would we do without Naxos? Certainly, we would not get to hear as many neglected eighteenth and nineteenth-century composers as the label affords us. Viktorija Kaminskaite, soprano Jun Markl, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Overture by D.G. Parker