Music is the key

An interview in the booklet for this disc takes a long time telling us why Alison Balsom has picked up a Baroque trumpet for this disc but EMI could have saved their ink, for when the instrument is played as fluidly agreeably as it is here, nobody could doubt that it is the right tool for the job (and it’s not, by the way, the first time she has recorded on one – in 2002 she made an admired debut with the Parley of Instruments for Hyperion. Balsom’s real point, however, is that it was the valveless trumpet’s vocal quality, its ‘human characteristic’ that informed its music and it is this above all that she demonstrates through her choice of music for this album. For it is not fanfares and tattoos that dominate, nor even concertos, but a smartly selected sequence of trumpet cameos from the theatre scores and elegant social music of Purcell and Handel. Some are real, including symphonies from Purcell’s semi-operas or Handel’s Eternal source of light divine ; in some, such...

Renowned for portraying the music of the baroque like no one else, Cecilia Bartoli presents her new recording of arias famously performed by legendary castrato, Farinelli. Exploring the complex gender roles of the world of baroque opera, and highlighting the phenomenon of the castrati, a horrifying practice which led to some of the most celebrated work of the period. Featuring works by Farinelli’s brother, Riccardo Broschi , and his mentor, Nicola Porpora, as well as Hasse, Caldara and Giacomelli. Including two new world premiere recordings, from Porpora’s Polifemo and Broschi’s La Merope.

The 1930s proved to be a bumper decade for violin concertos, and 1939 was the most productive year of all, with these three works seeing fruition (the Walton and Hartmann were both later revised), as well as concertos by Britten, Hindemith and Gál – any of which, incidentally, would have fitted on the rather skimpily filled second disc. Korean–American violinist Fabiola Kim proves an ideal exponent of all three concertos. There’s real warmth to her playing in the Walton, with some perceptive interplay between her and Kevin John Edusei’s Munich musicians. A particular strength is the variety of tone colours she displays, especially in the mercurial closing section of the central ‘alla napolitana’ Scherzo. Hartmann’s Concerto funèbre is the only work of the three here that demonstrably reflects the wider state of the world in that fateful year, and Kim’s first entry is filled with fragile foreboding, matched with sombre retorts from the richly hued Munich strings. The m...

SOMM Recordings’ The Deeper the Blue offers an intriguing exploration of colour and timbre in music and a revealing investigation of the connections between four very different composers over a near-100-year period. Taking its title from painter Wassily Kandinsky’s assertion that a deepening colour ultimately “turns into silent stillness and becomes white”, the recording illuminates the intimate relationship between student and teacher: Vaughan Williams and Maurice Ravel, Kenneth Hesketh with Henri Dutilleux and the influence on Dutilleux of Ravel. Hailed by  The Washington Post  for her “riveting” playing and “exquisite tone”, virtuoso violinist Janet Sung and the Britten Sinfonia – one of the UK’s “most flexible chamber orchestras” ( Evening Standard ) – make their SOMM debuts alongside long-time label artists, conductor Jac van Steen and pianist Simon Callaghan, the latter partnering Sung in Ravel’s jazz- and Blues-accen...

Another disc of real artistic merit and technical and musical quality from Somm. For the curious, the "jump out" name here is that of Dora Bright. Two substantial concertante scores are presented of music by a composer whom even the most assiduous collector of British music is unlikely to know. Certainly, I had never even heard the name. Robert Matthew-Walker's liner note is as detailed as it is enthusiastic and all the detail given here is drawn from his essay. As a pianist Bright was clearly a very talented player – performing at the Covent Garden Promenade concerts by the time she was 20 and even playing for Liszt four years later. The CD liner details various impressive "firsts" that Bright achieved through to the end of the 19 th century. She married an army officer 33 years her senior, which gave her financial security but seems to have caused a falling off in her creativity as both performer and composer. She lived until 1951 but appar...

La Serenissima explore the network of friendships and collaborations that helped bring together German and Italian styles during the Baroque, with concertos by Telemann, Pisendel, Brescianello and others. The musical world of eighteenth-century Europe was a small one. Despite the problems presented by contemporary standards of transport, it was quite normal for composers in one part of Europe to be entirely au fait with what was happening elsewhere. This is borne out by the closeness of three German composers: Telemann, godfather to C.P.E. Bach; Pisendel; and J.S. Bach, who admired both his compatriots and composed some astoundingly difficult music for the violinist Pisendel. This programme celebrates their music as well as the music of those who contributed to their musical heritage. Included alongside the German triumvirate are works by Vivaldi who physically helped with the composition of Pisendel’s A minor concerto movement, Fasch who was a great friend of Pisende...

Making an impressive solo debut on SOMM this month is the young, fast-rising pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen. No stranger to SOMM, she joined two of today’s finest pianists – Valerie Tryon and Peter Donohoe – in Mozart’s dazzling Piano Concerto for Three Pianos, K242 in 2018. Mishka studied with Joan Havill, Richard Goode and Imogen Cooper and was mentored by Sir András Schiff, who presented her in recitals throughout Europe and in New York for his acclaimed Building Bridges series. This superbly realised recital includes Variations by Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms and Mendelssohn, and first recordings of two new works, specially commissioned by Mishka for this recording, by Nico Muhly and Vijay Iyer. A single theme from Robert Schumann’s  Bunte Blätter  is the prompt for completely different, sometimes opposing, sets of musical mutations, the result as exciting as it is intriguing. A birthday gift for her husband, Clara ...

The acclaimed Italian guitarist Gianluigi Giglio makes his debut on SOMM Recordings with The 19th Century Guitar, a scintillating recital of music by Fernando Sor, a pioneering champion of the guitar in the vanguard of raising its profile out of the tavern and into the concert hall. Giglio’s wide-ranging recital explores Sor’s innate feeling for the guitar and charts the increasing demands he placed on the instrument in a body of work that transformed its standing with public and pundits alike.

Vasily Petrenko is the Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Between 1994 and 1997, Petrenko was Resident Conductor at the St Petersburg State Opera and Ballet Theatre in the Mussorgsky Memorial Theatre. During this time he gained an enormous amount of operatic experience and he now has over 30 operas in his repertoire. Petrenko is equally at home in symphonic and operatic repertoire. On the symphonic front, he has previously worked with the City of Birmingham Symphony, Swedish Radio, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and NDR Hanover, BBC Wales, Cadaques and Castille y Leon Orchestras in Spain. A Russian orchestral showcase from Vasily Petrenko and the award willing Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra present a programme of Russian orchestral classics - with some surprises. Ravel’s brilliant orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Khachaturian’s sumptuously romantic suite from his ballet ‘Spartacus’ with its famous ‘Ad...

The music and personality of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart have always been very close to my heart. I could not have predicted, however, that the late 18th century would become alive to me beyond his music and his life. In 2017, the Swiss dressmaker Christian Tanner created a historical women’s collection in the style of the 1780s-90s that was completely sewn by hand and for which I became the face and the inspiration. The transformation that came through wearing these gowns, having historical “tower” hairdos created with my own hair, induced a feeling of magical connection between the past and the present that led me to wonder: What must have been the sense of self of a woman at that time? How must she have sat at her instrument, constrained by the tightness of her corset and how could she move her hands? By actively participating in historical reenactments like candle-light soirées, dances and leisurely walks, Mozart’s daily life as I imagined it to be, based on his surv...

While Dreamsongs is a concerto for cello and chamber orchestra, it doesn’t take on the forms of older concerti. Rather than the almost ubiquitous three movement layout—Fast-Slow-Fast—it has only two movements, both of which mix slow and fast with dramatic and lyrical sections. The first, 'Floating Dreamsongs' is mostly slow and airy, and is built as a group of continuously developing variations on the intimate music from its opening and 1st variation with strings, harp and vibraphone. The consonant harmonies become spooked and furtive, building into tremulous marimba and vibraphone rolls with large orchestra chords, and only much later returns to a mostly peaceful character. Much of the 2nd movement, 'Kora Song', is inspired by music of the African kora, a plucked gourd almost similar in sound to the harp and pizzicato cello combination that opens the movement and is often featured in it. I don’t know of many cello pieces that concentrate on pizzicat...

Margarita Höhenrieder writes of her new release: "After just a few notes on this exceptionally fine Pleyel grand piano in Kellinghusen, north of Hamburg, in a collection of Eric Feller’s, I found myself plunged into a different century. This pianoforte was built in Paris in about 1855 and professionally restored using historical materials and methods. It is absolutely uniform with the instrument that Chopin possessed, and is of typically French elegance – in sound as well as in appearance. It reflects the soul of the Romantic era. Apart from that, it offers an authentic testimony to the sound of the instruments that Fryderyk Chopin and Robert and Clara Schumann played. Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck, gave his daughter a Streicher grand, built in Vienna. Personally, I saw this Pleyel as the ideal instrument on which to play the works of Robert and Clara Schumann as authentically as possible while also matching as precisely as possible the exacting demands they plac...

Mahler’s Eighth is a special challenge for all participants: in rehearsals, in performance, and, of course, when making a recording. The challenge lies in freeing the music from all of the technical and logistical problems that come with it. Whenever new possibilities emerged in music history (such as new musical instruments), composers tended to introduce the novelty quite frequently in the first phase to show its potential. A good example was the Mannheim School in the 1700s. The crescendo had just been invented: musicians no longer had to play dynamics in “terraced levels”. Mannheim pieces from that period are thus brimming with crescendos: musicians reveled in the new possibilities. Mahler, later on, wanted to explore the possibilities of an orchestra of unprecedented size, particularly in the Eighth. The effects made possible by such an enlargement should not become an end in themselves. That is the special challenge we have faced. If on this recording we have...

For its second album on Chandos, the young Ferio Saxophone Quartet presents a set of unique arrangements of milestones from the baroque repertoire, from Corelli via Bach to Handel. Including many premiere recordings , these fresh interpretations, full of flair and vitality, played on instruments that combine elements of brass and woodwind, bring the tunes and counterpoint to a fascinating new register. The Ferio Quartet plays with power, warmth, and dexterity.

The queen is a female figure at once powerful and gentle. In chess, the Queen’s power is unequalled: she moves far afield and in all directions, whereas the King most often remains on his territory, moving little and slowly. One might see in this distribution of roles a resemblance to the political strategies employed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by nations, which sent their princesses to marry kings all over the world, while the latter married the princesses who were brought to them. The queen did not come to destroy, as in chess, but to marry and to love; she brought nations together, expanded territories and established peace.  The Ensemble El Sol, directed by the harpsichordist Chloé Sévère , has devoted itself since its creation to Spanish and Latin American Baroque music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Founded in 2016, the ensemble consists of Dagmar Saskova and Angélique Pourreyron (voice), Ronald Martin (viola da gamba), Caroline Lieby (...

The latest album from Christina Pluhar and her instrumental ensemble L’Arpeggiata sheds new light on the chamber cantatas of 17th century Italian composer, Luigi Rossi. He wrote more than 300 of these works and Christina Pluhar’s new double album includes an impressive number of 21 world premiere recordings, which are the fruit of Christina Pluhar’s research among music manuscripts held in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Vatican Library. “These cantatas are works of rare beauty,” says Pluhar, who describes Luigi Rossi as “one of the shining lights of 17th-century Italian vocal music. Supremely inventive and extremely versatile, he juxtaposed styles within a single work, often shifting from intense recitative to mellifluous song, while also venturing into daring harmonic regions.” She has assembled a dazzling line-up of singers to perform the cantatas: sopranos Véronique Gens and Céline Scheen, mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Bridelli, and countertenors Philipp...

Erased Tapes present ‘Fallen Trees’ – the new album by singular talent and literal force of nature Lubomyr Melnyk – known as ‘the prophet of the piano’ due to his lifelong devotion to his instrument.  The album release coincides with Melnyk’s 70th birthday, but despite the autumnal hint in its title, there’s little suggestion of him slowing down. Having received critical acclaim and co-headlining the prestigious Royal Festival Hall as part of the ErasedTapes 10th anniversary celebrations, after many years his audience is now both global and growing. The composer is finally gaining a momentum in his career that matches the vibrant, highly active energy of his playing.  Cascades of notes, canyons and rivers of sound: there’s something about his music that channels the natural world at its most awe-inspiring. In ‘Fallen Trees’ the conne...

As one of the finest pianists of his era and an improviser of genius, Ludwig van Beethoven’s preferred vehicle for musical exploration was the piano. His earliest composition, from 1782, was a set of piano variations and he continued to compose for solo piano until the last years of his life. His interest in the concerto form diminished as his deafness forced him to retire from performing. Nonetheless, with his five piano concertos composed between 1788 and 1809, Beethoven not only achieved a brilliant conclusion to the Classical piano concerto, but also established a new model for the Romantic era: a sort of symphony with obbligato piano which remained a reference point well into the beginning of the twentieth. Ronald Brautigam has already recorded these seminal works with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, in acclaimed performances released between 2008 and 2010. Since then he has also released all of Beethoven’s solo piano music on the fortepiano to universal prai...

In celebration of Herbert Blomstedt’s 90th Birthday in July 2017, Accentus Music releases a new Beethoven cycle that captures the spirit of the long-standing partnership between the legendary conductor laureate and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. All nine symphonies, released in a box set containing five CDs, are live recordings made at the Leipzig Gewandhaus between May 2014 and March 2017. Blomstedt’s interpretations of Beethoven are based on a highly responsible handling of the scores and this conductor’s deep love of the truth, in which everything that is superimposed and overtly effective is fundamentally removed. At the same time however, the performances embrace the ethical conscience of the artist with his deep, almost seismographic musical sensibility and a high expressivity.

Another facet of Berlioz! We may find it hard to imagine that the composer of such epics as Les Troyens started out as a guitarist... and that his first compositional experience was to transcribe songs, inherited from the Ancien Regime, for voice and guitar. The particular instrument that was given to Berlioz by Paganini survives to this day; here it brings us closer to the repertoire suitable for a musicale hosted by Berlioz: airs for voice and guitar, but also art songs (a genre which the composer pioneered), along with chamber music and pieces for solo piano. Another way of listening to Berlioz!

The shimmering string harmonics at the opening of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony bring to mind the suspended breath of spring, and will have signalled even to the very first audiences that a new symphonic era was being ushered in. Soon enough the composer introduces some of the elements that would become key components of his musical language: sounds of nature (here cuckoo calls) are combined with quasi-militaristic fanfares and ‘high-art’ chromatic wanderings in cellos, as if to illustrate Mahler’s view of the symphony as an all-embracing art form. The symphony, which the composer originally gave the subtitle ‘Titan’ , borrows extensively from the song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. But Mahler also incorporates elements of Moravian popular music (in the second movement) and – in the slow third movement – famously quotes a minor-mode version of the children’s rhyme Bruder Martin (also known as Frere Jacques). The finale transports the listener to a world of Goth...

With her first two albums, Ms. Mühlemann established her reputation as a rising opera star and concert singer. In 2016, the young Swiss soprano impressed with Mozart Arias (she won the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik with her debut album). In her following album, Cleopatra , Ms. Mühlemann performed arias by Handel and Vivaldi brilliantly and was awarded an Opus Klassik for it. On her third album she presents herself as an artistically expressive Lieder singer with a rich repertoire. Born and residing in Switzerland, the musician has dedicated a large part of her new album, Lieder der Heimat , to unknown Swiss composers, along with well-known works by Franz Schubert. As the album title suggests, the themes of home, nature, hiking, farewell and longing form the leitmotif of the programme, which Mühlemann recorded with her long-standing accompanist Tatiana Korsunskaya. It was clear to the interpreter from the start that Franz Schubert would play an essential role ...

Built around the young soprano Katherine Watson and suggested by the conductor and flutist Alexis Kossenko, supported by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, this operatic program revives the splendor of Versailles. Blending operatic airs and instrumental pieces, this baroque collection offers a selection of the major works of the Sun King’s court, from André Campra to Marin Marais, but rediscovers as well several long-forgotten works from this period, as Louis de Lully’s opera Orphée. It also allows us to glimpse into the dramatic power of the rôles tendres, that mostly suit to women in love, leading roles of the tragédie lyrique, and for which Katherine Watson proves to be the ideal interpreter. The smoothness of her timbre and the clarity of the orchestra, under Alexis Kossenko’s sure direction, reveal all the treasures of these French airs that explore the depths of the human soul. Often exposed to torments, victims of the avarice of the gods, suffer...

Internationally renowned, British prodigy, Alma Deutscher returns with her sensational new album From My Book of Melodies. From My Book of Melodies comprises of melodies Deutscher has composed from the ages of 4 and 14 performed on the piano. Born in 2005, Deutscher is an incredibly gifted composer, violinist and pianist who has received critical and international acclaim for her compositions. She is often compared to many great composers including Mozart and Beethoven. Deutscher composed her first piano sonata at 6. This was followed by a short opera, called The Sweeper of Dreams , composed a year later. She has since written various works for piano, violin and chamber ensembles. Included in this album are melodies from Deutscher’s critically acclaimed opera titled Cinderella. Cinderella was written between the ages of 8 and 12. It has been performed in Austria, USA and Israel.

Several of Kaija Saariaho’s works are named after natural phenomena that serve as a starting point to her compositional process. Composed in 1998, Neiges was inspired by various qualities of snow and explores instrumental languages and colours similar to those found in her earlier works. On the present album the piece is heard in its never-before recorded version for twelve cellos, performed by the cellists of the Oslo Philharmonic. Another source of inspiration has been medieval literature, which formed a point of departure for Graal Théâtre, the first concerto Saariaho wrote, as well as for the recent Vers toi qui es si loin (2018). Recorded for the first time here, the piece is a transcription, made for the violinist Peter Herresthal, of an aria from the opera L’Amour de loin. These two works for violin and orchestra bookend this amply filled disc, and frame Circle Map, a work in six movements for large orchestra. Permeating the work are six short poems by the 13th-...

Gottfried von der Goltz, first violin and conductor of the first-rate Freiburger Barockorchester comes back with a new album dedicated to the violin sonatas of a young - and already brilliant - Telemann. Rarely recorded, these works show a very surprising form as they allow the musician total freedom of expression and ornamentation. These features demonstrate also the unique creative inventiveness already in germ in Telemann’s music. Telemann, a deep connoisseur of French an Italian tastes , puts a great delicacy in these sonatas (Francfort, 1715) as he deploys a quite outstanding melodic line and announces the galant style to come. With this release, Gottfried von der Goltz stands as an expert in Telemann as he provides an interpretation that reflects the main features of his works: vibrant and subtle.

Composer Julia Wolfe builds large structures out of propulsive musical materials that may often take on a sinister tinge. Her works are tremendous crowd-pleasers even as they take up often grim subject matter. Fire in My Mouth, an hour-long oratorio, is perhaps her most epic work yet. For two women's choirs and large orchestra, including a pair of scissors, the work involves a musical depiction of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911, in which 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, died after a fire broke out, and they found the building's doors locked. The fire itself, gripping indeed, comes in the final fourth movement, and the work is tightly constructed leading up to that terrifying moment. The first three movements mix the hopeful attitudes of the women with the maw of the industrial hell that awaits them. Wolfe's basic pulsing material is inflected in different ways as the music proceeds. The second movement, with a long percussion opening, repr...

“I have heard an angel sing,” wrote Schubert after he heard Paganini play in Vienna in 1828. Vilde Frang, partnered by pianist Michael Lifits, juxtaposes and links works by these two violinist-composers, who lived vastly different lives, yet are musically connected. Both found inspiration in the human voice and Frang sheds new light on Schubert’s demands for virtuosity and on Paganini’s sensitive musicality. Vilde Frang, partnered by pianist Michael Lifits, has assembled a programme that juxtaposes music by two violinist-composers of the early 19th century, Franz Schubert and Niccolò Paganini. While they lived vastly different lives and inhabited diverse aesthetic worlds, there are links to be found between them. Through the juxtaposition, Frang wants to highlight Schubert’s capacity for virtuosity and Paganini’s musicality and sensitivity. “It’s the contrasts that appeal to me,” she says. For her, the key connection between Schubert and Paganini is the inspiration t...

Warner Classics and Askonas Holt are proud to announce the signing of 20-year old American pianist, Eric Lu, winner and Dame Fanny Waterman Gold Medallist at the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition 2018. As part of this year’s coveted prize the winner receives worldwide management with Askonas Holt – one of the world's leading arts management agencies, and an international album release on Warner Classics – one of the foremost global classical music recording companies. This is the first time a record label and a management agency partner with ‘The Leeds’ to create a ground-breaking portfolio prize designed with long-term career development in mind. The recording deal is a corner-stone of its new prize package , designed to redefine what a music competition can offer young performers. Both, Warner Classics and Askonas Holt, aim to ensure that the winner has the opportunities, support and advice to develop a significant long-term international caree...

Violina Petrychenko decided to put together a program that would combine the musical traditions of Western Europe and Ukraine. The first part presents two composers, whose work is rooted in the classical traditions: Levko Revutsky and Viktor Kosenko . The remaining three, Kolessa as well as Igor and Juri Shamo, strove to draw on a greater number of folkloristic motifs. It was the piece Carpathian Fantasy by Juri Schamo, which gave her the idea to this program, because the work itself stands for the combination of musical traditions.

For her solo CD debut disc Ukrainian pianist Violina Petrychenko has chosen piano works by Scriabin and fellow Ukrainian Viktor Kosenko. Kosenko remains little known or recorded though the declared world première recording of his second piano sonata is in fact erroneous since its debut on disc was by another Ukrainian pianist Natalya Shkoda on Centaur Records back in 2011 on which all three of his piano sonatas are presented. That said this disc is interesting because of the similarities between the two composers: one born in Moscow, the other in St Petersburg, both of them admirers of Chopin, Kosenko also of Scriabin, and both of them dying at tragically young ages robbing us of so much more that they might have written. Petrychenko’s programme is one that encourages comparisons with her playing similar works by each composer. The otherworldliness that characterises Scriabin’s music is immediately apparent in the first of the 2 Poèmes op.32 . Its simple lines transpo...

1979 saw the death of one of the leading players in the baroque revolution. Undoubtedly the most famous countertenor of the twentieth century, Alfred Deller's performances convinced audiences that, three centuries earlier, Purcell had somehow composed songs with him in mind. His inimitable timbre perfectly showcased repertory that had long been gathering dust in libraries. Now, 40 years after his death, harmonia mundi has meticulously remastered the original tapes, bringing the art of Alfred Deller's alive once more.

Composed three centuries ago, Johann Sebastian Bach’s set of six works for solo violin stands as one of the holy grails of the instrument’s literature – perhaps the holiest. Now the great Austrian musician Thomas Zehetmair makes his own mark in the rich history of this music, revisiting the repertoire on period instruments. Zehetmair is an extraordinary violinist and a consistently inquisitive and self-questioning artist. He has not only played the big concertos but has given close attention to chamber music and new repertory, and has also found an extra calling as a conductor, channeling this varied experience into his return to the formidable cornerstone of Bach’s solo masterpieces. As a young man Zehetmair worked with Nikolaus Harnoncourt in his period ensemble, working with him to prepare for his first recording of the sonatas and partitas on a modern instrument.  For this new recording, he draws out exquisite colours from two violins from Bach’s lifetime, both...

The UK ensemble Apartment House performs two works: Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du Temps  in six movements, and Linda Catlin Smith's Among the Tarnished Stars , taking a fresh modern approach to the Messiaen, drawing out its experimental character, and the sense of drama and intricate gradations of sonority in Smith's rich and mysterious work.

This isn’t the first recording of Dufay’s chansons to appear since the Medieval Ensemble of London’s complete survey nearly 40 years ago (L’Oiseau-Lyre, 12/81), but it’s the most rounded and satisfying view of him to be had from a single anthology (in that Cantica Symphonia’s 2006 Glossa survey focused on the early songs). I was happy to be reacquainted with a few personal favourites (the early ballade Mon chier amy , the late virelai Malheureux cueur and rondeau Vostre bruit and the cheeky drinking-song Puisque vous estez campieur ), but having listened several times through I’m struck by several that had not quite done so before, which now speak very eloquently: Pouray je avoir , Belle, que vous ay je mesfait? and the understatedly perfect Par le regard . Like so many of the individual songs, the recital grows in stature with repeated listening. The reason is that the Orlandos are so experienced in this repertory that, nearly always, the choice of tempo and tone is s...

Somehow it was a while since I had heard the Op 119 Bagatelles, and I’m grateful to Imogen Cooper for reminding me what treasures they have to offer, sometimes at moments towards the ends of pieces when you least expect them. It takes real artistry to apply such subtle variations of expressive pressure from phrase to phrase as Cooper delights in. Every detail here is patiently appreciated and gracefully addressed: neither self-regardingly spelt out nor diminishing pieces to the status of a mere appetiser. Of course, the Diabelli Variations are still the main event, and here the demands are of a different order. The determined yet musically inflected Theme promises much. But the placing of its final cadence and the deliberate non- attacca into Variation 1 already seems to be making a point. Is Cooper deliberately going against the ‘normal’ modern way of dramatising the set, which stresses drive and continuity across groups of variations, in order to suggest a quasi-...

The Lockenhaus International Chamber Music Festival is regarded as one of Austria’s most prestigious festivals: it was created by the violinist Gidon Kremer to offer a new vision of chamber music and the opportunity to create musical exchanges in an intimate setting. The cellist Nicolas Altstaedt succeeded Gidon Kremer in 2012 and now continues the spirit of the festival. For this first recording in partnership with Lockenhaus, he is joined by experienced partners, including the Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, the Hungarian violinist Barnabás Kelemen, the German pianist Alexander Lonquich – whose Schubert double album was recently released on Alpha (Alpha 433) – and the British violist Lawrence Power. Together they have selected two works, the Piano Quintet of Béla Bartók, a demanding composition, rarely performed even though it is considered an intensely personal work, and the String Trio of Sándor Veress, a former student of Bartók. Nicolas Altstaedt has joined Alph...

Global superstar pianist Lang Lang has announced a new deluxe digital version of his chart-topping album Piano Book – the best-selling classical album worldwide released this year. Piano Book – Encore Edition, released on 15 November 2019, features six new additional tracks. Accompanying the release will be three performance videos and six short films in which Lang Lang talks about the pieces.  Piano Book – Encore Edition is a collection of 47 tracks including brand-new recordings of ‘Sweet Dreams’ from Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album, ‘Ivan Sings’ from Khachaturian’s Adventures Of Ivan, Christian Petzold’s ‘Minuet In G Minor’ from J.S. Bach’s Notebook For Anna Magdalena Bach and the three movements of Friedrich Kuhlau’s ‘Piano Sonatina In C Major, Op.20 No.1’. These are featured alongside favourites from the original album including Beethoven’s ‘Für Elise’, Chopin’s ‘Raindrop Prélude’ and Bach’s ‘Prelude In C Major’ from The Well-Tempered Clavier.  Lang Lang’s Piano Book ...

A setlist like no other, a never-heard-before compilation of deeply moving musical pieces highlighting numerous aspects of war and peace. This is how the Wiener Philharmoniker, led by Franz Welser-Möst and supported by an all-star line-up, among them singular pianist Yuja Wang, tackled the highly anticipated concert in commemoration of the end of the 1st world war. 100 years after the first of the devastating humane catastrophes of the 20th century officially ended at Versailles, a group of inspired musicians gathered at the historic site for a concert that will live on in the memory of those who have seen or heard it.

“After many years conducting choirs under extraordinary circumstances, I felt that I had neglected my first love: writing music. So I bought a new piano in 2016, began to practice in earnest and to compose. Around that time I worked on the INVICTUS games choir, an incredible experience but an emotional one. I moved from that to work with friends of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire: another life changing and life affirming project. Before beginning my next challenge I took some time out. My wife had our third child and I was able to be at home, play the piano and write music for myself and my family as she recuperated. This has been a very important and healing time. The music is a personal journey through the year and is inspired by my own feelings about each month: birthdays of loved ones, marriages, funerals are all in this music. I wanted to include the sound of a beautiful piano in a natural acoustic with the warmth of a choir and the energy of a strin...

Angela Gheorghiu returns to Decca to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her legendary La Traviata with Sir Georg Solti. This is a 23-track album featuring rare and classic songs never before recorded by Gheorghiu. She is the winner of five Gramophone Awards, twice recipient of Female Artist of the Year from the Classic Brits and in 2018 she received the 'Victoire d'Honneur' award in France. Accompanied by her compatriot Alexandra Dariescu , the recital opens with Romanian songs and includes such classics as Apres un reve, Tosti's ideale, Strauss' Morgen and the Chopin Tristesse.

Legendary Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire celebrates his 75th birthday with a new album, a delightful collection of personal piano favourites. The new record, ‘Encores’ , contains 30 tracks ranging from Purcell to Rachmaninov; Scarlatti to Shostakovich and 12 of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces . It also includes such treasures as the Sgambati Mélodie de Gluck , Paderewski’s Nocturne and Albéniz’s Navarra . An exclusive Decca artist since 2002, Nelson Freire won the 2006 Gramophone Recording of the Year and the Latin Grammy for Best Classical Album in 2013.

Period instruments such as the traverso, the Baroque violin, the viola da gamba and the harpsichord offer an incredibly wide palette of new sound possibilities suited to contemporary ears. From the early 1960s an increasing number of postmodernist composers began looking at these instruments as perfect tools to reconnect with both their audience and the music traditions from the past. Contemporary experimental “effects”, through the use of extended techniques and electronics, are proven able to create a fruitful dialogue with the perennial “affects” that baroque instruments are capable of arousing. Based on the Ph.D research of Matteo Gemolo at Cardiff University (UK), Affect is no Crime explores the heterogeneity of this new path, presenting 5 world premiere recordings of 5 works written for these 4 instruments from 5 celebrated living composers, from 5 different countries: from Anspielungen by H.M. Linde, an atonal patchwork enriched with baroque quotations, to the ...

In founding the Jupiter ensemble, the lutenist Thomas Dunford wanted to ‘rediscover the spirit of chamber music in the Baroque repertory. Jupiter operates in a kind of fraternity, as if we had always known each other... Vivaldi’s highly contrasted music demands precisely this natural response – almost like improvisation’. Lea Desandre speaks of a ‘search for colour and almost limitless inflections. This music was the “pop” of the eighteenth century’. The Franco-Italian mezzo, named ‘Révélation lyrique’ (vocal newcomer of the year) at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2017, performs arias from operas including Il Giustino, Juditha triumphans, Il Farnace and Griselda, as well as the famous ‘Cum dederit’ from the Nisi Dominus. The programme also includes four concertos, for lute in D major, for lute and violin, for bassoon in G minor and for cello in G minor. In addition to Thomas Dunford on lute , Peter Whelan on bassoon and the cellist Bruno Philippe, also a ‘Révé...