This the seventh instalment of our series of Sæverud's orchestal music features Nos. 2 and 4 of his nine symphonies as well as three shorter works, all dating from the period between 1923-1942. During the 1920s the Norwegian composer was hard at work developing his style - from the late Romanticism of the first three symphonies towards a more neo-classical approach. This development may have been one reason for the revised version of the 'Second Symphony', made in 1934, 11 years after the first performance of the work. The search for a greater simplicity is obivious in the '50 variazioni', an elegant piece in which a three-bar theme is varied fifty times. It continues in the 'Fourth Symphony', completed in 1937, almost chamber-like in long passages and less strident than its predecessors. 'Barcarola' was conceived as both an orchestral work and a piano piece, just like Sæverud's most popular piano albums. The latest of the works on this disc, 'Romanza' for violin and orchestra, was composed during the German occupation of Norway, but unlike other, more impassioned works of this period it is decidedly lyrical. Stavanger SO and Ole Kristian Ruud have received great acclaim for previous discs in the series, their performances being described as 'splendid', 'comitted', 'alert' and 'excellent' by critics in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Fanfare and MusicWeb International. Previous releases in this series are BIS CD762, 872, 962, 972 and 1162.

If at least some part of Isaac Albéniz' music may justifiably be described as 'salon music', this is not something that the composer would have objected to. Quite the opposite: he was himself very much a man of the salon, especially in his youth in the 1880s, which is when most of the pieces on Miguel Baselga's new disc were composed. It was in the salons of Madrid that he recruited new pupils among the young ladies of the bourgeoisie, performed his latest compositions and, presumably, had a good time in general. And although his greatest work - the four books that make up Iberia - was composed much later, in Paris, Albéniz never disassociated himself from the earlier works: 'There are among them a few things that are not completely worthless', he once remarked, '... there is less musical science, less of the grand idea, but more colour, sunlight, flavour of olives.' It was in the 1880s that a strong influence of Spanish style becomes evident in his music, as a result of the influence of the teacher and composer Felipe Pedrell. Folk music, especially that of Andalusia, and the characteristic idiom of Spanish guitar music make themselves felt in compositions such as Zaragoza and Sevilla, the two pieces published in 1890 as Seconde Suite espagnole. Other works on this disc are of a more 'international' character, for instance Les Saisons, Albéniz' own 'Four Seasons': four miniatures in an almost impressionistic style. Also included is the transcription, published in 2009, of one of the three improvisations that Albéniz recorded on a phonograph roll in 1903, permitting us a unique peek into the composer's creative mind.

Freemasonry had reached Finland via Sweden in the mid-eighteenth century, but was banned after the country became part of Russia in 1809. In early 1922, after Finland had established its independence, a new Masonic lodge was formed - Suomi Lodge No.1. Among its first members was Jean Sibelius, who initially served as the lodge's organist. At lodge meetings, Sibelius would played the harmonium, performing music by Mozart, Beethoven and Handel as well as improvising - at times so enthusiastically that he would have to be called to order by the Grand Master. It was also suggested that Sibelius should compose 'special, genuinely Finnish music for the lodge', but this did not happen until some years later, when he received a proper commission - and a fee - for the task. His Masonic Ritual Music, or Musique religieuse, received its first complete performance on 12th January 1927, but Sibelius returned to the work some twenty years later, adding two movements - Ode to Fraternity and Hymn - which are believed to be his last original compositions. The Masonic Ritual Music centres around a series of songs for tenor and organ, the number, order and texts of which vary between the original manuscripts and the various editions. The organ version on the present disc is the first recording to follow the original song text, according to Sibelius's manuscripts. This CD also includes an arrangement of the score, made by Jaakko Kuusisto at the request of the Finnish Freemasons for a special celebration concert held at the Sibelius Hall in Lahti.

This disc completes the set of CPE Bach’s Fortsetzung Sonatas, Wq51 that began in Volume 26 in this series. Although the sonatas were not published together with the composer's own variants on them, such alternative versions exist in manuscript, and splitting this set of large-scale works over two discs, Miklós Spányi also includes recordings of these varied or embellished versions that may represent the composer's revisions but could equally well have been intended as study material for his students.

The 'Württenberg' Sonatas are very demanding, clearly intended for skilful, professional keyboard players. The sonatas have almost symphonic or even operatic dimensions and attitudes; in fact they may almost be called romantic, conjuring up fantastic and colourful landscapes. The first three of the set are here performed on Bach's own favourite instrument, the clavichord, by Miklós Spányi, whose indefatigable work in bringing the keyboard music of C.P.E. bach to a wider audience has impressed both critics and music lovers alike.

Celebrating his 80th birthday in 2012, Per Nørgård is undoubtedly one of the most important Danish composers since Nielsen. A prolific composer in many genres, he has also been influential in his rôle as a teacher of composition, and through his extensive writings on music from both technical and philosophical viewpoints. This disc, recorded in 2010 in the presence of the composer, brings together his two violin concertos as well as the orchestral work Spaces of Time. While wholly characteristic of Nørgård’s personal musical language, each work exemplifies particular aspects that have preoccupied the composer during the past 25 years. In Spaces of Time one aim was to create a continuous development from the musical material, in spite of it being organized in separate and contrasting temporal spaces. Helle Nacht (‘bright night’) is, among other things, an experiment in focal depth – the music has several transparent layers, and at each hearing the listener will be able to experience the work differently, depending on which layer is perceived as foreground or background. The aimed-for transparency of the music is even more pronounced in the version for chamber orchestra, created especially for the soloist on the present recording. Borderlines, the title of the closing work, alludes to the position of the soloist, who must take into account two different tonalities in the orchestral accompaniment. One is represented by the Western ‘well- tempered’ scale, while the other features micro-tones generated as harmonics on the lower string instruments, and is, in Nørgård’s own words, ‘as foreign to the ear as is the dark side of the moon to the eye’. Supported here by the fine Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and conductor Rolf Gupta, the Norwegian violinist Peter Herresthal has previously appeared on two BIS releases, each documenting his close collaboration with a living composer: Olav Anton Thommessen and Arne Nordheim, respectively. Both discs were acclaimed by the reviewers, with the critic in the French magazine Répertoire extolling ‘the astounding achievement of Peter Herresthal: precise, virtuosic, sensitive and completely committed on the emotional level.’

This third and final disc of our survey of the complete orchestral music by Norwegian composer Fartein Valen includes three shorter one-movement works from the 1930s, as well as his last two orchestral compositions, his Fourth Symphony and the Piano Concerto. Kirkegården ved havet ('The Churchyard by the Sea'), which opens the disc, is among the most played of Valen's works and has been the inspiration for ballets as well as for a poetic film. As so often with Valen's shorter pieces, the composer had found inspiration in another work of art, this time the celebrated poem Le cimetière marin by Paul Valéry. The piece was conceived during a journey to Majorca, a journey which also bore fruit in La Isla de las Calmas ('The Silent Island'), based on a view of Palma de Mallorca, as the ship Valen was on departed for the mainland. Ode til ensomheten ('Ode to Solitude') is firmly based in the Norwegian landscape, however, its title referring to the solitude Valen sought at his isolated family homestead on the coast of Norway, where he spent his time composing and tending his beloved roses, but also worrying about the state of the world in the late 1930s and 40s. Christian Eggen and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra continues with Valen's last symphony, which contains something of a greeting to Johannes Brahms: like Brahms Valen ends his Fourth Symphony with a chaconne. For the final work - and Valen's last completed composition - they are joined by Einar Henning Smebye, the soloist in the piano concerto. Valen prepared for it by studying concertos by Mozart, and the three-movement work is classically simple in structure. It is restrained, almost anti-virtuosic with a solo part that is woven into the music.

To the general public, Masaaki Suzuki is known as the inspired leader of Bach Collegium Japan, currently undertaking a complete cycle of Bach's cantatas for BIS. He has also received much praise for his on-going recordings of the harpsichord music by the same composer. But his début was actually as an organist - he started playing regularly at Sunday services at the age of 12! When going to the Netherlands to study, Suzuki pursued parallel courses, graduating with a soloist's diploma in both organ and harpsichord. The years spent in The Netherlands also explains his familiarity with the musical world of J.P. Sweelinck, and with the traditions of the Dutch Reformed Church with its ties to Calvin and his 'Genevan Psalter'. The attractively varied programme on this disc alternates secular music for the organ with Sweelinck's settings of psalms from the Genevan Psalter. Due to the suspicion with which the Dutch Reformed Church - and Calvin - regarded instrumental music in religious contexts, these settings were not intended to accompany the congregational singing, but were rather played either before or after the service, providing an opportunity for meditation and afterthought. They fill a similar role on this disc, sandwiched as they are between the more extrovert Toccatas and Fantasias, but also testify to the central place these psalms had in Sweelinck's work. As an epitaph put it, it was he 'who put to music David's royal word, And made it to resound in Zion, in Holland it was heard.' The organ chosen by Masaaki Suzuki is a splendid instrument built by Marc Garnier according to the Northern German and Dutch style of the mid-17th century, especially for the use in the services of the Kobe congregation of the Reformed Church of Japan, where the tradition of congregational singing of Calvin's Genevan Psalter is particularly strong.