Music is the key

It's the late Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121, that get the big print on the cover of this release by the awe-inspiring baritone Matthias Goerne, but actually the music on the album falls into a neat early-middle-late classification scheme. The group of middle-period settings of poetry by Heinrich Heine doesn't even get graphics on the cover, but these are fascinating. Brahms wrote a lot of songs, but you couldn't do better than the selection and performances here for a cornerstone collection item. Beyond the sheer beauty of Goerne's voice is an ability to shift gears to match how Brahms' style evolved. If you want to hear his real slashing, operatic high notes, check out the Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 32, settings of poems by the minor poets Georg Friedrich Daumer and Karl August Graf von Platen. These rather overwrought texts add up to a kind of slimmed-down Winterreise, and they catch the spirit of the still-young Brahms with his strong passions, elegantly controlle...

“The Song of the black Swan” by Heitor Villa-Lobos is the centrepiece of this attractive musical program for flute and harp is conceived around the topics of “water”, “lake”, “ocean” & “rain”. Including the well known piece, “The Swan” from “The Carnival of the Animals” (« Le carnaval des animaux ») by Camille Saint-Saëns, the album features also several songs in arrangements for flute and harp by composers such as Schubert & Mendelssohn. Another key work is Claude Debussy’s “Syrinx”, the first significant piece for solo flute after the Sonata in A minor composed by C. P. E. Bach 150 years before (1763), and it is the first such solo composition for the modern Böhm flute, perfected in 1847. The Swiss flutist Eva Oertle is active as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe and performs with such internationally renowned orchestras as Il Giardino Armonico and Al Ayre Español. As a soloist she has performed with the Brandenburgisches Streichorchester, the ...

Dorothea Röschmann releases her new recital album including well known songs by Schubert, Schumann, Strauss and Wolf. She is accompanied by Malcolm Martineau who is recognized as one of the leading accompanists of his generation. "The idea for this program of female portraits took seed a long time ago, when I was studying in London with the wonderful teacher, Vera Rozsa. I used to make frequent pilgrimages to the extraordinary National Portrait Gallery where one is surrounded by the most imposing portraits of British personalities and royalty, such as the Tudors and Queen Elizabeth I, as well as countless figures from British history – poets, physicians and so on - all concentrated and condensed within the confines of the building. A portrait represents a very intense encounter with a person and you believe you know them better after having studied the picture for some time. It can only give you a glimpse of the personality, but also creates an impression of h...

After an audacious label and album debut dedicated to Webern, Beethoven and Yun, the young musicians of the Novus Quartet interpret with passion two essential works from Tchaikovsky's chamber music: the First Quartet and the Sextet 'Souvenir de Florence' aided and abetted by two guests, cellist Ophélie Gaillard and viola player Lise Berthaud. These two works, milestones in the career of the composer (the first written in 1871; the second in 1887), show Tchaikovsky's inclination for popular melodies. Clarity and technique serving musical expression, the fiery strings of the Novus Quartet spread a warm, homogenous sound that invites melancholy, in the slow movements, and paints the exultation of Tchaikovsky's poetic universe.

Serge Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto might never have seen the light of day had it not been for hypnosis: before the twenty-seven-year-old composer began work on it, he was on his last legs – financially, artistically and psychologically. Dr Nikolay Dahl hypnotised his patient every day, whispering to him: ‘You will write your concerto. You will work with great fluency. The concerto will be of excellent quality.’ The creative block disappeared, and the concerto’s premiere in Moscow in 1901 was a triumph for Rachmaninov, who played the solo part himself. Anna Vinnitskaya says she feels ‘a spring-like atmosphere’ in this work: throughout there is a sense of movement, of awakening. The music passes through the most contrasting psychological landscapes, but moves towards clarity and light. Rachmaninov composed the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in 1934, ten years before his death. Brahms, Liszt, Lutosławski and Andrew Lloyd Webber are among the remarkable roll...

“It has been clear for some time that Evgeny Kissin is a Beethoven player of rare pedigree and distinction, the finest Russian-born Beethovenian since Emil Gilels,” Gramophone Any history of the great pianists would be incomplete without a chapter devoted to Evgeny Kissin. The 45-year-old artist is blessed with the rare qualities required to enter the pantheon of piano legends. A recent recital at London’s Barbican Centre inspired the Telegraph to describe his playing as “miraculous”, while the New York Times wrote of the pianist’s “blend of technical mastery and eloquent artistry” following a spellbinding performance at Carnegie Hall. After a break of twenty-five years, the pianist has signed a new exclusive contract with the yellow label. Kissin’s discography already contains landmark recordings for Deutsche Grammophon , critically acclaimed collaborations with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado among them, and the association betwe...

After the mystical ‘Hebrides’ Overture and the masterly ‘Reformation’ Symphony, Mendelssohn embarked on his second violin concerto. After a long gestation in which he polished the orchestration and meticulously revised the solo part, the work was finally premiered in Leipzig in 1845. From David to Joachim, virtuosos honed the violin part with the composer over successive revivals, leaving to posterity traces of their playing style: fingering, bowing and score markings. This precious heritage has been scrutinised by Isabelle, as she did for her Brahms Violin Concerto recording, as a previously unexploited expressive resource. Isabelle Faust, accompanied by the Freiburger Barockorchester, in top form, under the direction of Pablo Heras-Casado, offers us a miracle of purity and lyricism in a freshly-minted interpretation that fulfils Mendelssohn’s promise of ‘a concerto to make the angels rejoice in heaven’! (Presto Classical)

Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds reissues and revives his debut album in form of a special remastered 10th Anniversary edition titled Eulogy For Evolution 2017 — available worldwide via Erased Tapes on August 25th. Following its initial release in 2007 and coinciding with Ólafur’s 30th birthday, label founder Robert Raths gifted the chance for this record to shine a second time. Eulogy For Evolution is a journey from birth to death, transporting the listener through life itself. Originally written as a teenager, the record has now been restored with the help of his friends, remixed by Ólafur himself and remastered by Nils Frahm. The cover art was redesigned and enhanced by Torsten Posselt at FELD using the original photographs taken by Stuart Bailes during a trip to Ólafur’s home in Iceland in 2007. To experience the record in the present day is not only to experience the past, but also the sheer timelessness and relevance of these compositions, and the ambition Ólafur...

For this recording of music by Buxtehude, Jonathan Cohen, founder of the ensemble Arcangelo, is joined by a distinguished trio, including two regulars on the Alpha label, Sophie Gent and Thomas Dunford, alongside the gambist Jonathan Manson. Although Dietrich Buxtehude is famous above all for his organ music and cantatas, and for the long journey the young Bach undertook to meet him, his chamber music is virtually unknown. In the mid-1690s, at the height of his fame, Buxtehude published two collections in rapid succession, each comprising seven sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo. It is the works of the first collection (1694) – designated Opus 1 in the print – that Arcangelo has recorded here. These sonatas are characterised by pronounced experimental features in both the scoring and the handling of the instruments.

One of the most surprising things about working with great composers is that they can find completely new sounds from an instrument to which you have dedicated your life. When I was called to perform the premiere of Repentance during Sofia Gubaidulina’s residency with the San Francisco Symphony in 2009, I had to come up with what the score called a “friction beater”, which was “a small ball of rubber or elastic plastic… fastened onto a springy, resilient steel string (e.g. a piano string)”. That prompted quite a few trips to different stores, and a lot of puzzling over how exactly one can fasten a piano string onto a small ball. But this was Sofia Gubaidulina. She hadn’t written for the guitar since she produced the two early, short pieces heard here, but in the interim she had become celebrated as the great and fearless composer that she is. The rest of the score had fantastic and unusual sounds, and it all made sense, so I figured that she must have a very specific idea here that ...

David Tanenbaum is one of the most important performers of contemporary classical guitar music. He has a special liking for recording older music with the guitar. Silvius Leopold Weiss, a contemporary of Bach, was the most important lutenist of the Baroque era. The repertoire on this CD is drawn from the London manuscripts, which were written between 1708 and 1724. Tanenbaum’s recording on the guitar offers complete respect to this wonderful 18th-century music. Once again, the master guitarist from the USA gives proof of his impeccable technique and his ability to produce a perfect interpretation in the service of his repertoire. The result is a CD full of calm and strength, imbued with the power of a by-gone age.

The women appearing before our ears throughout this programme range from the Virgin Mary and Dido, queen of Carthage, to Shakespeare’s Desdemona and the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, waiting for her execution in the Tower of London in 1536. But the disc also features four other heroines – the Italian composers Claudia Sessa, Francesca Caccini, Lucrezia Vizzana and Barbara Strozzi. All active between 1590 – 1675, they will have required great courage to rise above the social conventions of the time, but this surprisingly productive period for female composers also offered an opportunity that would disappear in later centuries: the all-female environment provided by the convent. More than half of the women who published music before 1700 were nuns, including Sessa and Vizzana, who are here represented by brief meditations on the suffering and death of Christ. Caccini and Strozzi, on the other hand, lived very much in the secular world – Caccini at the Florentine court and St...

Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray represent the two leading figures from the world of the French viola da gamba with – in the opinion of a contemporary in Hubert Le Blanc – the former playing like an angel and the latter like a devil. And fiendishly difficult to play, of course, are many of the pieces brought together in the volume prepared by Jean-Baptiste Forqueray (“le fils”) in 1747, two years after the death of his father, and drawn from sketches and memories. These Pièces de viole avec la basse continuë , dedicated to Princess Henriette of France (the younger of Louis XV’s twin daughters), serve as a final and grand homage to an instrument, which after seventy years of an absolute rule was by that time starting to cede territory to the cello... Glossa is now bringing back into circulation – in a newly-prepared edition – the recording which introduced Paolo Pandolfo to the label, where he was joined by a starry group of fellow performers in Guido Balestracci,...

Abandoned at the age of two months and taken in by the Ospedale della Pietà, Chiara (or Chiaretta) rose – within that enclosed charitable institution in Venice – to become one of the leading European violinists of the middle of the 18th century. No stranger to such acclaim himself from two and a half centuries later, Fabio Biondi, on his first release for Glossa, has devised a programme drawing on the personal diary of this remarkable musician – taught by Antonio Vivaldi, and later a virtuoso soloist on the violin as well as the viola d’amore – of concertos and sinfonias by composers who, like the prete rosso , taught at the Pietà: Porta, Porpora, Martinelli, Latilla, Perotti and Bernasconi are all musicians whose compositions charm and delight as much today as they will have done in the time of Chiara. Along with this inspired vision-in-sound of the 18th century musical world of the Ospedale comes a half-hour long DVD dramatization; CD and DVD admirably reflect both...

Dutch violin virtuoso Janine Jansen turns her considerable talents to Impressionist and post-Romantic French repertoire in this album devoted to music evocative of the evening, night, and dreams. The recital includes the premiere recordings of three brief works by contemporary French composer Richard Dubugnon, and while they would not be mistaken for products of the early 20th century, their language and sensibility are very much linked to the works of Debussy, Fauré, Lili Boulanger, Messiaen, and Ravel that make up the rest of the album. Jansen has been a generalist, recording works from Vivaldi and Bach to Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Britten. French music has not been a large presence in her repertoire, although she played the premiere of Dubugnon's Violin Concerto, which he wrote for her. For the most part she avoids the wispiness that can afflict interpretations of "Impressionist" repertoire, a term Debussy hated. That delicacy is perfectly suited, however, to Heifet...

Leonidas Kavakos, the outstanding Greek violinist, makes his ECM debut on this disc, as does the comparably gifted Hungarian pianist Péter Nagy, in a programme that explores the musical-historical relationship between Ravel and Enescu. Increasingly regarded as one of the most insightful musicians of his generation, Kavakos first attracted attention via his spectacular successes in international music competitions, taking first prizes in both the Sibelius and Paganini competitions. From the outset, however, it was clear that  he had more than virtuosity at his disposal, and the depth of his musicality was already evident. Born in Athens into a musical family with strong traditions in folk music, Kavakos began studying violin with his father, continuing his studies at the Greek Conservatory with Stelios Kafantaris. An Onassis Foundation scholarship enabled him to attend master classes with Joseph Gingold at Indiana University, and he made his concert debut at the ...

Prokofiev’s demanding, conceptually lopsided Cello Concerto, failed at the box office and has been little heard. Indeed, the only significant on-disc competition for Steven Isserlis’s blazing live account comes from the 2000 recording made by the late Alexander Ivashkin. With a Russian cellist and orchestra, the music sounds deceptively ‘Soviet’ so that we experience it counterfactually as a variant of the entity it would become years later when refashioned for Mstislav Rostropovich as the Symphony-Concerto, Op 125. Isserlis’s reading may yet mark a step change in the reception history of the 1930s original. No matter that Paavo Järvi’s accompaniment feels super-efficient rather than comparably spontaneous. Applause is excised. While you might not consider the hard-edged companion concerto a natural Isserlis piece, the cellist has played it a good deal. Distinctly brisk, except in the initial Allegretto, the new studio interpretation is flexible rather than lightwei...

Playing together for the first time for Hyperion, Hough and Isserlis are stunningly matched in this large-scale passionate romantic programme. The sonatas stand at the centre of the meaty repertoire established by Brahms—whose two cello sonatas Steven Isserlis has recorded for us in an award-winning disc accompanied by Peter Evans (CDA66159)—and characterised by grand sweeping gestures, lush melody, and heartfelt emotions that sear from pathos to frenzy. The Franck is, of course, an alternative version the composer wished for his violin sonata, a transition that many feel to be the work's happiest incarnation. These performances are distinguished by the inspired combination of the renowned energy and panache of Isserlis with the fastidious translucency of Hough's playing, in music often despatched with more gush than gusto. Isserlis also provides a programme note very much in his own style; he examines the inspiration behind both works, coming as they do from d...

As his starting point for a brand new recording of the music from the polychoral Renaissance and the “monumental Baroque”, with Alessandro Striggio’s 40 and 60-part Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno leading the way, Hervé Niquet turns to the musical celebrations for a feast day occasion in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence in honour of St John the Baptist, adding a trio of works by Orazio Benevoli, another specialist in multi-parted choral works, and Striggio’s motet Ecce beatem lucem , also scored for 40 voices. For sessions in Notre-Dame du Liban in Paris, using an edition of the Mass by Dominique Visse, originating in 1978, Niquet gathered 60 singers (as called for in the Agnus Dei ) plus instrumentalists of Le Concert Spirtuel around him in a circle (conductor and microphones inside) for a new SACD surround sound experience from Glossa , that calls on all the ceremonial pomp and flair which the French musicians have been showing themselves to be ...

The Libro de mùsica para vihuela intitulado Orphénica Lyra is one of the most important vihuela publications of the 16th century. The work of the blind vihuelist Miguel de Fuenllana, it appeared in 1554 bearing a dedication to "Philip, Prince of Spain, King of England (1554 was the year of Philip's short-lived marriage to Mary Tudor) and Naples." Fuenllana, who subsequently entered into the service of Philip II, was rated one of the best performers of the day, so skilled that he was apparently even capable of playing on an untuned instrument. His ambitious and extraordinarily diverse Orphénica Lyra contains 188 works spread over six books that include both his own compositions and arrangements of works by some of the most popular composers of the period, among them Josquin (with 13 works, second in quantity only to Morales), in addition to those listed above.   While it is not unusual to come across the odd piece from the publication on reci...

Jos van Immerseel and Claire Chevallier have enjoyed a close collaboration for many years now. Like Jos van Immerseel, Claire Chevallier loves period pianos; like him, she is a researcher and possesses her own collection of keyboard instruments. After its recordings of works by Saint-Saëns for two pianos and works by Rachmaninoff for four hands, the duo devotes a programme to the dance with the famous Hungarian Dances of Johannes Brahms and the no less celebrated Slavonic Dances of Antonín Dvořák. The much more rarely played Norwegian Dances of Edvard Grieg complete this trip around Europe. A recording made on an authentic Carl Bechstein piano built in Berlin in 1870, from the personal collection of Jos van Immerseel.

Passions run high in the operas and madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi, and they dominate Capella Mediterranea's 2016 release on Alpha-Classics, I 7 Peccati Capitali (The Seven Deadly Sins). Interpreted here as the seven deadly sins of sloth, envy, pride, greed, gluttony, lust, and wrath, and accompanied by corresponding virtues listed as hope, extravagance, chastity, humility, temperance, charity, and courage, the excerpts from Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea , Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, and Orfeo, along with selections from Selva morale e spirituale, Ariose Vaghezze, and the Libri dei Madrigali, provide representations of 17th century morality and key examples of Monteverdi's seconda pratica, described by the group's leader, Leonardo García Alarcón, as "the rationalisation of emotions through music, and a meditation on human vanity." The intensely dramatic performances by this ensemble of six singers, joined by a consort playing period ins...

A half-hour spent with Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera brings us face-to-face with the past, the present and ‘forever’ by employing, respectively, Bach and Shakespeare, a string quartet plus pipa (a pear-shaped, fretted lute) and an ensemble of water, stones, metal and paper. Wu Man plays pipa and doubles with vocals, bowed gong, tam-tam, Tibetan bells and paper. Kronos double their usual role with vocalizing, bowing a gong (watch those fillings!) and working a filled water bowl. Water is in fact the first thing we hear. Thereafter, three members of Kronos play a tender transcription of part of the Fourth Prelude from the First Book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier – a leitmotiv that assumes especial poignancy in the third movement, or Third Act (there are five acts in all), where it converges with a Chinese folk-song to beautiful effect. The Fourth Act, “Metal and Stone”, a vivid study in aural perspectives and a hive of invention (some of it syncopated), transforms into the last...

This engaging new release leaves no doubt that the sometimes cheerful, sometimes melancholy song of the cello can pull off a Spanish accent just as well as that of the classical guitar. With “Ibérica”, French cellist Anne Gastinel and Argentinean guitarist Pablo Márquez (whose recording of the vihuela music of Luys de Narváez so impressed recently – ECM, 10/07) bring an urbane and sophisticated yet earthy and sensual quality to the songs and dances of Falla and Granados, as well as the solo guitar and solo cello music of the great Spanish cellist and friend of Andrés Segovia, Gaspar Cassadó. The opening Danza española No 1 from Falla’s La vida breve is a revelation, Gastinel’s spiccato -studded bowing showering fiery notes over Márquez’s crisply articulated accompaniment; the Intermezzo from Granados’s opera Goyescas and the same composer’s tonadilla La maja dolorosa meanwhile highlights the intense beauty of Gastinel’s cantabile playing. In another tonadilla, the well...

Klassik für Unterwegs

This album marks the rediscovery of one of the most important composers of the Italian Baroque: Carlo Francesco Cesarini (1666-1741?), a virtuoso violinist also known as Carlo del Violino. The six previously unreleased cantatas on this recording were composed in the early 18th century and regularly performed between 1700 and 1717. They are all taken from Manuscript 2248 of the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome, a rich anthological collection assembled for Cardinal Pamphili, a major figure in Roman cultural life. The themes treated are in the pure Arcadian-pastoral tradition: the suffering caused by an unreciprocated love (Penso di non mirarvi), betrayal and distance from the loved one (Oh dell’Adria reina), jealousy (Filli no’l niego io dissi). Two of the cantatas are based on mythological episodes: Ariadne for 'Già gl’augelli canori', and Phaeton for 'Fetonte e non ti basta'. This major rediscovery is sublimated by the divine Stéphanie Varnerin and L'A...

This recording is the last of the triptych of CDs that the Freiburger Barockorchester has devoted to Mozart's concertos. His final instrumental work, the Clarinet Concerto, was written just a few months after the last Piano Concerto, No. 27 in 1791. In both cases, the performers have gone back to the original manuscripts to unearth the details of Mozart's own performing practice . If his markings are followed precisely, as here, it is possible to rediscover his fascinating variety of sonic perspectives. Lorenzo Coppola completed his diploma in Classical clarinet under the guidance of Eric Hoeprich at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Since then he has been one of the most sought-after clarinettists in the field of historical performance practice. He has played with such ensembles as La Petite Bande, Les Arts Florissants, the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, the Orchestra of the 18th Century and the Freiburger Barockorchester. Lorenzo Coppola also performs chamb...

Light, sprightly, and delightful, the Freiburger Barockochester's disc coupling Mozart's First and Fourth horn concertos with his oboe and bassoon concertos is oodles of fun. Old timers, longing for the mellow tone of Dennis Brain, might object to hornist Teunis van der Zwart's metallic tone, but they certainly couldn't complain about his glorious technique or his vivacious sense of humor, a vital element in Mozart's horn concertos. And old timers might likewise complain that oboist Katharina Arfken's tone is perhaps too lean and bassoonist Donna Agrell's tone is possibly too pungent compared with, say, the warm, round tone of soloists from the Wiener Philharmoniker, but here, too, they surely couldn't protest that they can't play the heck out of the pieces -- and sound like they're having a rollicking good time doing it, too. Backed by the very dry but very colorful and very skillful Freiburger Barockochester under the direction of Petra Mülle...

With a few major exceptions, most of Mozart's works are tied to specific situations and locales. That being the case, it's surprising that more recordings haven't been devoted to works he wrote in a certain place and at a certain time. One learns a lot from hearing all his Masonic pieces at one time, for example. And this disc, which offers a slice of Mozart's music from his 1778 visit to Paris, makes a satisfying whole -- and along the way makes a strong case for Mozart's authorship of the disputed Symphonie concertante for flute, oboe, horn, bassoon, and orchestra, K. 297b, presented here in an adaptation by Robert D. Levin of a later and probably spurious version with a clarinet. The symphonie concertante was a genre of French origin, and the example here fits with the rest of the ingratiating, abundantly lyrical, slight but absolutely seductive music Mozart wrote in Paris. The Freiburg Barockorchester and leader Gottfried von der Goltz also offer t...

Liturgia fractal is a cycle of five string quartets in which each quartet is based on a different fractal model. Working with a fractal model, as something of an allegory of the way waves move, is based on the concept of a cycle as a “natural entity”. The combination of the idea of self-similarity (fractal) with that of spreading-out (wave) reflects the search for a sound which develops organically, as if it were just another part of nature. The cycle consists of altogether five quartets , but it is also possible to perform two or three in various combinations without losing the balance achieved within the overall collection. One of the quartets, Arborescencias, can even be interpreted as a single, independent work. Ondulado tiempo sonoro..., the first quartet, functions as a seed for the rest. This work presents the most important musical material and parameters around which the rest of the collection revolves. Each quartet adds new material to that which was used before, and...

Patience, exactitude and determination: Alberto Posadas is aptly characterised by these three human virtues, thanks to which he has succeeded—without haste, but also without pause—in claiming for him- self a prominent place in the European music scene. His industriousness and honest dedication have given rise to a catalogue of works which, though not excep- tionally extensive, know neither breaks nor setbacks. His strict and extremely precise way of constructing time and form in a highly complex manner, without ever neglecting to preserve a certain degree of free- dom for his unequivocally craftsman-like intuition, has made him one of the most exciting composers of his generation in Spain.  Due to the style in which he combines and joins his sonic material, Posadas’ compatriots often refer to his music as “Francophile”. Beyond the Pyrenees and above all in Francophone countries, where many doors of opportunity were opened to him (including by Festival d’Automne in Paris, Ago...

St. John Cantius of Chicago stands uniquely in the United States as a classical epicenter for the sacred and the beautiful. Founded by Polish immigrants at the end of the nineteenth century, the parish today represents a broad cross-section of every ethnic, socio-economic and age group. Recently, The Chicago Tribune, reported St. John Cantius, was awarded “The Most beautiful Church in the United States.” On any given day- one can step through the doors and be easily transported to different historic periods and countries via exquisite liturgies, devotions (including sung Vespers), orchestral concerts and recitals, paired with the gorgeous European architecture.  From the heart of Chicago, St. John Cantius presents the St. Cecilia Choir and Orchestra bring us the classic Süssmayr completion of Mozart’s Requiem. This fresh interpretation of Mozart’s iconic Requiem is beautifully phrased and brings out delicate nuances rarely heard.   From the firey Dies Irae to ...

Without any doubt this is one of the great recordings produced by Glossa, as well as being the only recorded occasion in which the two co-founding brothers of the label – guitarist José Miguel Moreno and violinist Emilio Moreno – have taken part together. In the hands of these fabulous specialists, who are accompanied by a tiple treble guitar and castanets in the famous Fandango , two of Boccherini’s guitar quintets sound here with an unparalleled intensity and brightness. (GLOSSA)

We stand before Glossa's distinct and definitive contribution to the 4th centennial celebration of the Quixote: this is no "music in the times of...", nor an association of a composer to the myth on the sole basis of their coincidence in time, nor a work inspired by the novel, but precisely that which everybody felt to be missing: a kind of "soundtrack" for the Quixote , in which the musical references which pepper Cervantes great work and some of his Novelas Ejemplares are collected and lovingly performed. Romances and songs alternate with dances such as chaconnes, folías and jácaras, creating a beautiful and accurate musical landscape in which the reader will easily locate our hero's adventures. This disc also marks the reencounter of José Miguel Moreno with his renewed group, Orphénica Lyra, after some rather quiet years on the discographic front. Nuria Rial, with a voice that soars to sublime heights of beauty, sensitivity, and agility, s...

There is no question of José Miguel Moreno being anything other than the leading Spanish specialist in historic plucked string instruments. As a concert performer, researcher, builder and collector of instruments and co-founder of the Glossa label, Moreno has, over the last thirty years, been the guiding beacon for a number of succeeding generations of guitarists and lutenists the world over. Glossa was the label for which he recorded two of his now legendary programmes, La Guitarra Española (1536-1836) and La Guitarra Española (1818-1918) . These had previously been deleted but we are now bringing them back as a doubledisc set. Moreno plays a range of instruments made either by Lourdes Uncilla or by himself in order to infuse with a new vitality the fundamental repertories in the history of the guitar as bequeathed by the vihuelists Narváez, Milán and Mudarra, then later composed by figures such as Francisco Guerau, Santiago de Murcia and Gaspa...

Artistic brilliance and innovative programming are the trademarks with which the Bremen native Nils Mönkemeyer has, in a short time, achieved international renown as a musician while drawing enormous new attention to the viola. As an exclusive Sony Classical artist, he has brought out several critically acclaimed, award-winning CDs in the last years, all of which have made their way into the German classical charts. The programmes of this and Mönkemeyer’s previous recordings encompass discoveries and first recordings of original viola literature ranging from the 18th century to modern pieces , as well as his own transcriptions. 2017 will mark the release of the newest recording with works by Walton, Bruch and Pärt and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Markus Poschner. Nils Mönkemeyer has collaborated with such conductors as Sylvain Cambreling, Elias Grandy, Christopher Hogwood, Cornelius Meister, Mark Minkowski, Michael Sanderling, Clemens Schuldt, Karl...

In todays world there are few stereotypes concerning string instruments. Contrabasses, due to their size, are associated with small range of motion and peculiarly understood coarseness. In the music community there are thousands of jokes concerning violas and viola players. Traditionally, the most noble roles are attributed to cello and violin. The first of the abovementioned instruments is perceived as a romantic and passionate instrument; the violin is seen as mesmerizing and calls to mind brilliant virtuosos with technical skills. This release disproves some of those stereotypes. Anna Wandtke, an outstanding violinist, proves that violin can beautifully sing and talk about passions, feelings, and emotions without resigning from showing a perfect technique with a pinch of spectacularity. All of these elements produce a perfectly composed whole.

The originality of this album’s programme is its focus on famous sacred pieces transcribed for the warm and lyrical voice of the cello, an instrument whose tone is certainly one of the closest to the singing voice. The words of the Magnificat, Requiem, Stabat Mater or Ave Maria - well known in the repertoire of vocal sacred music - fade here to better reveal the development of musical emotion aroused by the melody itself, and the subtlety of the accompaniments (organ, viola, theorbo, voice) in reinforcing and supporting the expressiveness of the singing. Inspired by sacred texts, the melodies by Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi and Pergolesi reveal the strength and intensity of their expression, even without words, and reinforce the idea developed from the late eighteenth century that music, by its power of suggestion and evocation, goes beyond words to express the unspeakable , sometimes with simplicity and depth. From Taverner to Thierry Escaich, and also Allegri, Handel, Franck ...

The young Chinese pianist Ran Jia gained international attention for her extraordinary interpretative abilities for the piano work of Franz Schubert. Tan Dun praised her as a “ piano poet with dramatic skill in music making .” For her recording of Schubert Sonatas D 960 and D 664 for the French label Artalinna she was awarded with a Choc Classica in December 2015. Her interpretation was called equal to the famous Schubert recordings by Kempff, Lupu and Richter. “ An astonishing album and a name to remember !” A special milestone in the 2016/2017 season will be her Berlin debut with the complete Schubert sonatas in the Philharmonic Chamber Music Hall, that Ran Jia will play on four evenings within ten days. Other important appearances include the MDR Sinfonieorchester and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, as well as Rheingau Music Festival, where she will give her recital debut. Other highlights of the current season will be her debuts with China Philhar...

“As this filtration process is itself worked through Abrahamsen’s half-hour score, however, the idea has undergone another transformation. The spare yet pregnant lines of text meet Abrahamsen’s finely spun textures and each word feels felt and weighed in music. Possibly you don’t even need to know that Barbara Hannigan is singing Ophelia’s words any more, yet her vehemence and passion suggest she thinks justice is finally being done to a woman who never did get much chance to tell her side of the story. Hannigan premiered the piece in 2013 (then it was performed by the Berlin Philharmonic under Andris Nelsons; now the Latvian has recorded it with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra) and had reportedly coached the composer on the intricacies of vocal music for what was his first sung work. One imagines these sessions produced the use of stile concitato emphases on repeated syllables, a flick of Monteverdi added to a more usual Hannigan repertoire of jarring leaps and ...

Where next for Claudio Cavina and La Venexiana after their exhilarating run of recordings of Monteverdi madrigals, operas and much more? One route is proving to be in the direction of Francesco Cavalli, the 17th century composer who spent much of his working life in Venice, starting off as a chorister in St Mark ’s Basilica when Monteverdi himself was in charge. Although Cavalli has been known as a composer of Venetian seicento sacred music, it is his prolific contribution in the field of opera – where he became one of the leading figures involved in the development of commercial opera companies from the 1640s onwards – that has been receiving greater attention from artists in more recent times. And it is with a dramma per musica in Artemisia from the mid 1650s, with its tale of love, deceit and honour and the upholding of the virtues of the Venetian Republic (all this richly captured by the expressive style of Cavalli), that Cavina ...