Do you love Brahms? Then you will also want to discover the works of Amanda Maier and Robert Fuchs: three violin sonatas, all composed or published in 1878, are now presented by Duo Codax on GENUIN. The album combines Brahms' G-major Sonata with two rarely performed works in a similar style for the same instrumentation-an engaging look at the musical environment of the time. With great sensitivity for tonal balance and phrasing, Verena Louis (piano) and Adam Markowski (violin) shape the long, sweeping lines, warm colors, and passionate accents of this music: a beautifully recorded, outstanding release for chamber-music lovers!

Uta Weyand’s latest album is devoted to music from the year 1892, played on an instrument made that same year. It recreates a very specific historical moment where the instrument and the music can be seen and heard as contemporary. German-born pianist Uta Weyand comes from a musical family. The daughter of a choir conductor and an organist, she grew up with choral music and the organ repertoire. During childhood she expressed her extraordinary musical talent not only at the piano, but also excelled at the violin, voice, and music composition. The Post and Courier (South Carolina) predicted her success, stating, “Weyand is a pianist of genius, who should have a long career.” And the Nuremberg News confirmed, “…especially admirable is her amazing ability to make the great Steinway sing and wrest many captivating colors from it.” After her studies in Freiburg (Germany), Baltimore, and Madrid, with Elza Kolodin, Vitaly Margulis, Leon Fleisher, and Joaquín Soriano, Ms. Weyand has had great international success, giving numerous piano recitals and appearing with orchestras in most European countries, Russia, Brazil, Cuba, and the United States.

Chicago Hot (DMK 253), the first Delmark release from The Fat Babies, was chosen as a top ten album of 2012 by Howard Reich in the Chicago Tribune. 18th & Racine was recorded at the acoustically gifted Electrical Audio room B as the band swung through a smattering of hot 'n' sweet tunes that have been slaying crowds weekly at their Green Mill and Honky Tonk BBQ performances. The Fat Babies interpret classic styles of the '20s and '30s. Founded in 2010 by string bass player Beau Sample, it's members include Andy Schumm, cornet; John Otto, reeds; Dave Bock, trombone; Jake Sanders, banjo and guitar; Paul Asaro, piano; Alex Hall, drums.

During the 18th century in Naples there were a huge number of excellent musicians. As a result, Neapolitan music reveals an exhaustive and surprising gold mine of new discoveries and small masterpieces. None of these sonatas have ever been recorded before. Flautist Renata Cataldi presents these works on an authentic transverse flute. She is joined by the ensemble Partenope Stravagante, cellist Leonardo Massa, and harpsichordist Debora Capitanio. Renata Cataldi studied at the "Licinio Refice" in Frosinone and "San Pietro a Majella" in Naples, and received her Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Bologna. She regularly concertizes as a soloist, in various chamber ensembles, and in orchestra, devoting herself to the modern, Renaissance, and Baroque transverse flute. With the transverse flute, she dedicates herself to the recovery and enhancement of the eighteenth-century Neapolitan musical heritage. She is also the author of essays and articles published for the State Archives of Rome and the Italian Society of Musicology.

This is the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to the British-American war film, composed by six-time Grammy award-winning composer Thomas Newman. Newman has composed the music to Skyfall, Tolkien, Spectre, Finding Dory, The Shawshank Redemption, and WALL-E, amongst others.

The film was nominated for Nine Oscars at the 92nd Academy Awards, including Best Original Score, and winning three.

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REVIEW:

If usually a Thomas Newman score is quite balanced emotionally wise, “1917” sees the composer stretch his sound to both extremes, from ultra-quiet and ambient to aggressively tense. The result is an enjoyable hybrid that shows that just like Mendes and Deakins, Newman raised his personal stakes for this one.

– SoundtrackDreams.com (Mihnea Manduteanu)

October 29, 1923 was a date steeped in history. In the middle of a year of political and economic crises, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde" (Berlin Radio Hour) from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. Radio offered entirely new possibilities for the production and reception of music. The two compositions on this CD not only benefited from these developments but also played an active role in shaping them.

Eduard Künneke's five-movement Concerto grosso "Tänzerische Suite" op. 26 for jazz band and large orchestra corresponded to modern dances: the Overture is a Foxtrot, the Andante a Blues, the Intermezzo a Tango, the valse mélancolique a Boston Waltz, and the Finale a Foxtrot again. The suite was celebrated as a milestone in contemporary radio music and soon became part of the regular concert program.

Hanns Eisler's cantata "Tempo der Zeit" (Tempo of the Times) op. 16 for soloists, narrator, choir, winds, and percussion was written in 1929. The libretto was written by the popular lyricist Robert Gilbert, under the pseudonym of David Weber. With its pure wind ensemble and percussion, "Tempo der Zeit" captures the typical Songspiel sound of the time. The fact that Eisler used the "modern" medium of radio, of all things, to get his fundamental criticism of blind enthusiasm for technology across to the people is an ironical aspect of the work’s composition and reception history. This CD is part of the special programme focus on the topic "The Wild Sound of the Twenties".

21 track collection features songs recorded at New York's Liederkranz Hall in 1941 by Woody Herman & Gene Krupa for the hall's trascription library. The 10 songs by Herman feature vocals by Woody, Muriel Lane & Steady Nelson. The 11 songs by Krupa feature vocals by Anita O'Day, Roy Eldridge & Howard Dulany.

Not only was Thornhill's distinctive instrumentation deeply influential on later bandleaders, but so were the trailblazing Gerry Mulligan and Gil Evans arrangements you'll hear on these 17 tracks. Behold Snowfall; a Sunday Kind of Love; Rustle of Spring; the Things I Love; Early Autumn; Traumerie; Le Papillon, and more!