Rosanne Philippens INSIGHT

Thinking up new programmes is something I usually do on my own at my desk. But for this solo album I wanted to take up a new challenge to create a programme with my audience. I had the feeling that this would provide me with new insight. With just my violin as travelling companion, I set off through Europe for a series of solo recitals with a collection of pieces to try out. After each concert I asked the audience for feedback: how had they experienced the programme? The atmosphere, the sequence of the pieces and the length. Instead of treating my audience as passive listeners, I invited them to discuss these matters and feel involved.

On my way to the next recital I thought about the reactions. Slowly but surely the programme began to form a logical entity. This is what INSIGHT is all about. The liner notes tell more about the process of making a programme, and the actual music is the final result. What is in store for you? Not the average classical programme. Don’t be surprised if a Baroque piece dating from 1676 is split into two or if the Sarabande by the twentieth-century composer Enescu is embraced by dances by Bach. Be open to new insights and enjoy! (Rosanne Philippens)

Elicia Silverstein THE DREAMS & FABLES I FASHION

Violinist Elicia Silverstein is rapidly garnering praise on the international stage for her nuanced, bold and insightful performances of repertoire ranging from the 17th to the 21st century. Recently named a 2018 BBC Music Magazine Rising Star, Silverstein is equally at home as performer on historical and modern instruments, as a soloist with orchestra, giving recitals and playing chamber music.  Her inventive and thoughtful approach to concert programming, as well as the sincerity and exuberance she brings to musical communication, distinguishes Silverstein as one of the most important voices of her generation.

Rubicon Classics presents: The Dreams & Fables I Fashion Elicia Silverstein's groundbreaking new album - a musical fantasy in which past, present and future meet and inspire each other...

Flora Papadopoulos UNWRITTEN

''A fresh, unusual and fashinating travel through time. A good idea for music lovers to listen to their favourite pieces under a new light!'' 

J.S. Bach, Biber, Marini, Corelli are four protagonists of baroque music that no one would associate to the harp. However, they worked in environments where the activity of harpists is widely witnessed, and where a repertoire for the solo harp, while it surely existed, was never written down. 

Based on this premise, and after a deep research on original sources, an ambitious project is born. It suggests that the repertoire of the violin, which shares many idiomatic features with the harp, has long been a source of inspiration for harpists. 

Hence, here some of the most well known and virtuosic pieces for the violin have been adapted to the harp, giving a fresh second life to these compositions, drawing light to new shades and unexpected reflections. 

Flora Papadopoulos, after important collaborations with some of the best known European ensembles of early music , debuts her first solo album. Through personal, highly experimental and empiric paths, she restores a fascinating musical practice that has been long lost.

Lina Tur Bonet / Musica Alchemica BIBER Mystery Sonatas

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's Rosary Sonatas (or Mystery Sonatas) c. 1678 are unlike anything else in the violin literature, with scordatura, or unconventional instrument tuning, exhaustively explored in the fifteen-piece cycle, each sonata utilizing a different tuning. Each sonata represents one of the Catholic Rosary Mysteries. As the music reaches its spiritual climax in the "Resurrection" sonata, Biber specifies the violin be played with its two central strings crossed. Accompanying Lina Tur Bonet, an exciting younger generation violinist, is her ensemble Musica Alchemica.

Rachel Podger GUARDIAN ANGEL Works by BIBER, BACH, TARTINI, PISENDEL

The music on this recording demonstrates how composers in Germany, Italy, Austria and England responded to the challenges of writing for violin senza basso. Music for violin senza basso had a distinguished history before Bach and was widely cultivated by his contemporaries.

Violinistic virtuosity was extraordinarily experimental in the late seventeenth century, with novelties in the tuning of the strings (scordaura), bowing techniques, chordal playing and contrapuntal textures (with the development of sophisticated double-, triple- and quadruple-stopping techniques) and playing in high positions. This disc of solo violin music is a real mixture of some of Rachel's favourite pieces.

Rachel Podger is one of the most creative talents to emerge in the field of period performance. Over the last two decades she has established herself as a leading interpreter of the music of the Baroque and Classical periods. After beginnings with The Palladian Ensemble and Florilegium, she was leader of The English Concert from 1997 to 2002 and in 2004 began a guest directorship with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with whom she appeared in a televised BBC Prom in 2007. As a guest director and soloist she has collaborated with numerous orchestras including Arte dei Suonatori (Poland), Musica Angelica and Santa Fe Pro Musica (USA), The Academy of Ancient Music, The European Union Baroque Orchestra, Holland Baroque Society and the Handel and Haydn Society (USA).

Rachel directs her own ensemble, Brecon Baroque and is Artistic Director of her own festival: the Brecon Baroque Festival. Rachel is an honorary member of both the Royal Academy of Music (where she holds the Michaela Comberti Chair for Baroque Violin) and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (where she holds the Jane Hodge Foundation International Chair in Baroque Violin) and teaches at institutions throughout the world. (Gramophone Magazine: Editor's Choice - November 2013)