Marin Marais is one of the most important figures of the French baroque. At once a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, a composer and a teacher, Marais left behind a varied body of work that displays strikingly abundant inspiration. Five books of viol music punctuated his life. Published between 1686 and 1723, these collections for solo and accompanied viol not only offer a remarkable synthesis of the practices of the time, but they also bear witness to the development of the instrument. Marais's frequently intimate music, a far cry from courtly splendors, calls up an imaginary world of light and shadow. Atsushi Sakai has launched a series of recordings of this unique collection of pieces. This album, the first, is devoted to Book I, a transitional work that confirms the refinement of the "style francois". Viola da gambist Marion Martineau and harpsichordist Christophe Rousset join Atsushi Sakai on this adventure, recreating the trio that stood out so brilliantly in their Forqueray and Couperin albums.

The curiosity of the countertenor Andreas Scholl, one of the most recognized opera singers, is well known, with his taste for rare and precious musical items. We find him here with the lute player Edin Karamazov in the embodiment of an encounter between Havana and Leipzig, between contemporary Cuba and baroque Germany. Navigating from the one to the other, the two musicians weave the fabric of a musical reverie in which Johann Sebastian Bach walks alongside the Cuban master Leo Brouwer, whose crossover works draw at once from folklore, creole roots, dance and the scholarly European tradition. These works marvelously echo the chorales, the Cello Suite and the English Folk Songs, arranged here by Brouwer himself, and dedicated to the duet. The poetic, intimate instrumentation, with an utterly limpid lute and the velvet tone-color of Andreas Scholl, becomes the delicate setting for the hushed, modest expression of the different faces of love.

This manuscript, from Christophe Rousset's private collection, was discovered by him in 2004. Dedicated to a Madame de Th�obon, it contains not only the essential French harpsichord pieces of the late seventeenth century, but also many transcriptions of compositions by Lully and several hitherto completely unknown preludes. Providing precious insight into the art of the harpsichordist and the musical practices of that time, these pieces are recorded here for the first time. With it's powerful but still austere sound, the Nicolas Dumont harpsichord of 1704 does them full justice.

Christophe Rousset continues and concludes his exploration of Bach's splendid keyboard corpus in this new recording, which combines depth, virtuosity and interiority. The Toccatas are among Bach's earliest works composed between 1705 and 1712. They bear witness to the influence of northern masters such as Buxtehude, and are above all the site of Bach's stylistic blossoming, giving free rein to his fantasy, his freedom and his architectural and expressive genius.

Though Amanda Maier left her mark on the musical life of her time, the centuries that followed largely forgot her name. With this album, the Trio Ernest opens a door onto her musical world, highly personal, alongside works by Grieg, the Schumanns, and Reinecke. At it's heart lies Maier's beautiful Trio in E-flat major, at the crossroads of German Romanticism and Swedish folk tradition, as well as the Swedish Airs and Dances, whose color and charm are brought to life by Eleonore Billy's nyckelharpa.

For the second volume of their complete symphonic works by Mendelssohn, Les Ambassadeurs - La Grande Ecurie bring together two works marked by the composer's trip to the British Isles in 1829 and his visit to Fingal's Cave. The musicians have chosen here the first versions of these pieces - less famous than the later versions - which are being recorded here for the first time on period instruments.

With Vieni, o Notte, Francesca Aspromonte signs her first recording for Aparte with an all-Scarlatti program. Together with Arsenale Sonoro and Boris Begelman, she explores three cantatas (sometimes described as serenate) in which the composer makes the night the stage for his characters' thwarted loves. He gives them arias and recitatives that are painful, contemplative, or searing, complemented by two sonate a quattro with madrigalian lines, whose quartet performance by Arsenale Sonoro highlights the bold harmonic shifts, the shadows, and the light. The album closes with All'hor che stanco il sole, a world-premiere recording - a musical meditation on love and loss. Here, Aspromonte unfolds a mastery of line and text that reveals the full sensuality of this music.

Founded in 2016, the Sypniewski Trio brings together Magdalena, Anna and Caroline Sypniewski. For "Origines", their first album, the three sisters return both to the birth of the string trio and to the origins of their own ensemble. The programme includes Purcell's fantasias for viols - intimate pieces enriched by the musicians' historically informed performance practice - alongside trios by Sibelius and Beethoven (the third of the Op. 9 set, the most ardent and innovative of his works in the genre), as well as Kaija Saariaho's intense Cloud Trio. These varied musical landscapes offer the Sypniewski sisters the opportunity to play with virtuosity on the paradox of the trio format, where individuality and cohesion serve a single musical narrative, which they shape with precision and poetry in a spirit of total commitment.

In 1892, Brahms returned to the piano to deliver his final works for the instrument: four collections of music written in a sparse, almost ascetic style, before the Vier Gesange that would close his oeuvre. "Playing a late Brahms intermezzo is like walking in the snow: every trace remains." Fabrizio Chiovetta approaches these songs of farewell with his characteristic elegance and directness.

After their first recording, Nuits parisiennes, Manon Galy and Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan open the door to the inner worlds of Romanticism. Surrounding Mendelssohn's rare Sonata in F major MWV Q 26 (his only mature violin sonata), Brahms's Second, and Grieg's Third are a few poetic and intimate gems, such as Sibelius's Berceuse and Fibich's Poeme. Between "melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo," violin and piano become the exalted yet nostalgic voice of the composers' most personal confidences.

After Bess's departure, what becomes of Porgy? Having fallen in love with Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, the brilliant pianist and arranger Vyacheslav Gryaznov decided to answer this question by taking up the opera's themes. With Rhapsody in Black, a concerto for piano and orchestra, he picks up the story where the opera leaves off: Bess in New York, Porgy following in her footsteps. Neither a pastiche nor a simple arrangement, Rhapsody in Black reclaims Gershwin's legacy by blending electrifying improvisations, big-band sonorities, and poetic ballads. With this New York fresco, complemented by Rhapsody in Blue, Gryaznov creates an extraordinarily vibrant diptych, superbly brought to life by the Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and Wayne Marshall, a leading specialist and outstanding interpreter of Gershwin.

Traetta's Ifigenia in Tauride draws us into the tragic heart of the House of Atreus. Orestes is consumed by guilt over the murder of his mother Clytemnestra, while Iphigenia bears the lasting scars of her near-sacrifice, planned by her own father Agamemnon. They are two tormented souls, profoundly alone, who find each other in a moment of overwhelming recognition. Traetta's music captures this tragic tension perfectly. Standing at the crossroads of Neapolitan bel canto and Gluck's dramatic reform, his vocal writing is never an empty display. Every line, every ornament, conveys raw, sincere emotion. Christophe Rousset leads the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques and a brilliant cast of soloists, with Rocio Perez delivering a deeply moving portrayal of Iphigenia, in this masterpiece by Traetta, recorded here for the first time.

This complete recording of the a cappella choral works of Francis Poulenc marks the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Ensemble Aedes and brings to a close a cycle initiated in 2009. Francis Poulenc's a cappella choral compositions form a unique ensemble, revealing a fragile interiority suffused with profound humanity. For him there was no sense of division between the secular and the sacred in his choral works: he appears to have considered them as a single entity, stemming from the same inspiration. From the Chanson a boire (1922) to the Laudes de saint Antoine de Padoue (1957), all of his compositions show the same fervor, clarity, and depth of feeling.

Little is known about Johann Sebastian Bach's sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord. Are they early works or products of his late period? Do they form a cycle, or are they a collection of independent pieces? Long-time musical partners Atsushi Sakai and Christophe Rousset set out to record these enigmatic works, in which the gamba, as so often in Bach, becomes at once the voice of lamentation and an instrument of dialogue with the divine.

The myth of Orlando Furioso, conceived by Ludovico Ariosto in the 16th century, is one of the most fertile for dramatic and musical imagination. Between chivalrous heroism, romantic torment and psychological turmoil, it explores the limits of passion and the fractures of the human soul, offering Baroque composers an ideal terrain for expressing the tension between reason and madness, order and chaos. This program bears witness to this, traversing the many faces of Orlando through excerpts from operas by Vivaldi, Handel, Steffani, Fux and Porpora, where recitatives, arias and instrumental movements mirror his inner world.

Schumann is one of the great lifelong companions for musicians, including, Dasol Kim. The composer manages, with remarkable subtlety, to capture the fleeting yet striking moments and emotions of existence. His Carnaval, the Forest Scenes, and his final composition, the Geistervariationen ("Ghost Variations"), dedicated to Clara and first published in 1939, contain numerous references to popular imagination, literature, Schumann's life, and his reflections - all of which Dasol Kim explores here.

In the 1730s, many composers tried their luck in London. Geminiani revolutionized instrumental writing with his famous treatise on interpretation and presented an amazing version of La Folia; his pupil Avison orchestrated concertos by Scarlatti, and Porpora ventured away from opera to rediscover the vocality of the cello with one of the most beautiful concertos of that period. Ophelie Gaillard and Pulcinella treat us to a frenzied and poetic night in London. They meet Vivaldi, Hasse, Scottish composer James Oswald and virtuoso cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri. Guest artists Sandrine Piau and Lucile Richardot take on magnificent vocal pieces by Geminiani and Handel.

There is a link between the style of the early masters and that of the innovators, asserted Schonberg. The program of this recording seeks to prove this saying of the master of the Second Viennese School. Hortense Cartier-Bresson sets up a dialogue between the fathers of serial music and Bach. Interweaving the Toccatas BWV 910-913-914 with the first Sonata of Berg, the Three Pieces of Schonberg and the Variations of Webern, this recording explores the great Austro-Germanic tradition and it's inheritance.

Liszt's predestination for sacred music doubtless stemmed from his childhood, when he had close ties to Catholicism through his father. He went on to compose many works expressing the virtues of various saints, and to those works Martin Haselbock and the Orchester Wiener Akademie are devoting a series of recordings. The first volume features St. Cecilia, with Cantantibus organis, St. Francis of Assisi, with La predication aux oiseaux (the first of his Deux Legendes for orchestra) and the Cantico del Sol di Francesco d'Assisi, and also St. Francis of Paola, with St. Francois de Paule marchant sur les flots (Deux Legendes No.2) and An den heiligen Franziskus von Paula. While bearing little resemblance to Liszt's secular compositions, these works are equally impressive in their beauty and refinement. This recording, while providing us with a fine opportunity to witness once again the composer's admirable skills, highlights an aspect of Liszt's work that is all too often forgotten.