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Legends of Cyprus - Othello on CD

SOMM Recordings celebrates the rich cultures of Cyprus with music inspired by this Mediterranean island and the legend of Othello, as conductor-composer Nimrod Borenstein and the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra perform works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Antonin Dvorak, Franz Schubert, and Borenstein himself. Previous Borenstein collaborations with SOMM include his label debut featuring three of his piano compositions [SOMMCD 281], and the release of his Shakespeare Songs, Mandolin Concerto, and Oboe Concerto [SOMMCD 719]. The CySO, is both a strong presence in the musical life of the island and a national symbol that represents the Republic of Cyprus internationally.

The album's title work, Legends of Cyprus, composed by Borenstein for the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra in 2025, evokes an entire world of feelings, atmospheres, and magical stories. The composer describes the piece as a continuation of his exploration of richly contrasted orchestral colours and emotional worlds, but within a more concentrated single-movement form-a form akin to 'what the short story is to the novel.'

Shakespeare set four of the five acts of Othello on the island of Cyprus, where the tragedy of Iago's manipulation of the Moorish general into believing the infidelity of the innocent Desdemona plays out. The gifted and tragically short-lived Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was commissioned by the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree to write incidental music for a 1909 production of Othello at His Majesty's Theatre in London. Three years later, Coleridge-Taylor drew from his theatre music a vibrant five-movement orchestral suite. 

When Antonin Dvorak arrived in New York 1892 to take up the post of Director of the

National Conservatory of Music, he brought with him Nature, Life, and Love, a cycle of three concert overtures. He had composed the third, Othello, earlier that year and conducted the premiere of the trilogy as part of a farewell concert in Prague. Although named a concert overture, Othello is close to being a symphonic poem in it's dramatic musical interpretation of Shakespeare's play and it's frenetic climax of the tragic events.

Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus by the German playwright Helmina von Chezy concerns the attempts of the heroine to reclaim her throne despite the efforts of the governor to thwart her. The play closed after two performances in 1823 and is all but lost, though the music written by her friend Franz Schubert-which we know as his Incidental Music to Rosamunde-remains an absolute triumph of the Romantic era. It consists of nine numbers, and included on this disc are the famous Entr'acte No.3 and Ballet No.2.