Inveterate browsers through new release lists are sometimes worried by a
composer they've never heard of and thus perhaps avoid--of course, MCML
members simply post and someone knows.  Thus I thought it worth giving a
plug to Alfred Hill (1870-1960), an Australian composer who trained and
played in the orchestra in Leipzig and spent a number of years doing good
things for the musical life of New Zealand.  Despite his dates, his music
is very much rooted in the C19 and influenced by his training, although he
occasionally made some use of Australian aboriginal and Maori ideas.  If
you respond to people like Bruch or the C19 Americans, I think you'd find
him worthwhile.  He wrote a great deal of music, including 13 symphonies
and 17 string quartets, some of which he orchestrated to become some of
the symphonies.

I mention all this because a volume of his orchestral music, so far
unspecified, is in Naxos's April release list on Marco Polo.  Two volumes
of symphonies, with short orchestral works as fillers, have already
appeared on this label as have some of the quartets (Don Satz might be
interested).  If you have access to The New Grove, there's a useful article
on him and the usual work list.

Richard Pennycuick
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