Ilona Timchenko's upcoming album Echoes of a Hidden Legacy is a deeply personal and artistically courageous tribute to the music of Albert Semyonovich Leman, a composer of profound humanism whose voice, shaped by brilliance and adversity, has remained largely unheard beyond Russia Bringing together two major piano cycles written for and dedicated to her (Verhaeren Suite and Schallwellen (Waves of Sound)) both presented here in world premiere recordings. Timchenko restores a living connection to her teacher's artistic vision. Having inherited Leman's final piano, the very instrument on which these works were composed, she creates a rare continuity of sound and spirit, bridging past and present in a performance that is at once intimate, poetic, and architecturally luminous. Inspired by the symbolist poetry of emile Verhaeren, the Verhaeren Suite transforms atmosphere into music of striking psychological depth, while Schallwellen explores resonance and vibration with a contemplative modernity grounded in expressive sincerity. The album is completed by Sofia Gubaidulina's powerful Chaconne, written during her studies with Leman, forming a symbolic arc from teacher to student, from legacy to continuation. In this carefully curated program, Timchenko does more than interpret: she listens, remembers, and reawakens. The result is not merely a recording, but an act of artistic restoration, a testament to resilience, mentorship, and the enduring force of sound itself. With her commanding presence and lifelong commitment to contemporary music, Ilona Timchenko invites us to rediscover a voice that speaks not as an echo of the past, but as a vibrant and necessary presence in today's musical landscape.

Ensemble Castor continues it's acclaimed journey into the sound world of Johannes Schenck with the second volume of Suonate per violino e violone o cimbalo, Op. 7 presented here as a complete world premiere recording. Published in 1699, Opus 7 stands as a dazzling compendium of Schenck's compositional imagination, blending Italian sonata form, French dance suites, and the expressive freedom of the Stylus phantasticus into a richly varied musical tapestry. Far from the modest claim that these works were written "quickly for beginners," the collection reveals profound artistry, virtuosic interplay, and an almost inexhaustible delight in experimentation from inventive Capriccios to the radiant Aria XVIII with it's six variations crowning the cycle. With their deep commitment to historical performance practice and their refined chamber music dialogue, the Austrian musicians of Ensemble Castor bring this extraordinary repertoire vividly to life. Following the international success of the first volume, praised worldwide for it's brilliance and stylistic authority, this new release further illuminates Schenck's genius a composer-virtuoso whose music transcends borders and fashions. In the hands of Petra Samhaber-Eckhardt, Philipp Comploi, and Erich Traxler, Opus 7 unfolds as a living conversation across centuries: bold, elegant, and irresistibly expressive.

Quartetto Altemps'new album Romanticismo Italiano brings to light two extraordinary yet long-overlooked voices of nineteenth-century Italy: Stefano Golinelli and Vincenzo Antonio Petrali. Conceived as a rediscovery of "two treasures of the Italian musical heritage" that fill the apparent void of Italian chamber music of the era, this world premiere recording reveals how two towering keyboard virtuosi- a celebrated pianist and a renowned organist- embraced the string quartet, the supreme chamber genre. In Golinelli's String Quartet Op. 100 No. 1 in B minor (1854), operatic intensity and harmonic restlessness meet the structural clarity of the Austro-German tradition, evoking echoes of Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert while retaining a distinct Italian lyric impulse. Petrali's Quartet in G major, presented in it's 1884 revised version, reflects a mature and deeply personal synthesis: Italian cantabile warmth intertwined with contrapuntal mastery inspired by Central European models. Rooted in meticulous research of original sources and manuscripts, Quartetto Altemps approaches this repertoire with the spirit of musicians performing music of their own time - forward-looking, vibrant, and alive. The result is more than a historical reconstruction: it is a powerful artistic statement that restores these works to their rightful place, illuminating a forgotten chapter of Romantic Italy with passion, stylistic awareness, and compelling interpretative depth.

Perfectly Free brings together two contemporary cello concertos-Osvaldo Golijov's Azul and Anna Clyne's DANCE-in a live recording that cellist Maja Bogdanovic describes as a deeply personal journey of discovery. Both works received their Dutch premieres during the Stift International Music Festival with the Phion Symphony Orchestra, under the batons of David Cohen (Azul) and Xandi van Dijk (DANCE). Golijov's Azul is portrayed as a poetic, otherworldly tapestry of colors and styles, ranging from Baroque influences to Piazzolla-inflected rhythms, enriched by an unusual orchestration featuring a prominent accordion and a wide spectrum of exotic percussion. The concerto unfolds like a cosmic vision-at times improvisatory, at times prayerful-culminating in sound worlds that evoke radio signals, stardust, and distant galaxies. Clyne's DANCE, inspired by Rumi's poetry, contrasts this with a five-movement exploration of raw emotion and virtuosity, stretching the expressive and technical boundaries of the cello. Moving from fragility to rhythmic intensity, from Baroque purity to diabolical energies, the work blends folk elements, lyrical lines, and personal nostalgia-including a final, haunting dedication to the composer's father. Bogdanovic emphasizes the profound artistic partnerships behind the recording, noting the rare creative "telepathy" experienced with Golijov and the intuitive collaboration with van Dijk. Golijov says: "Perhaps the greatest joy I know in music is telepathy between composer and performer. I am beginning to get used to it when I experience it with life-long collaborators who instantly understand the music I only understand myself after months of working on it. But I am startled when telepathy happens with a musician I have just met. This is what happened with Maja: No need for words to explain anything. Maja understands Azul better than I understand it myself. This gives me a great sense of relief. I know I don't need to be present for my music to live in the world. I am grateful to Maja for that. David Cohen and the Phion Symphony Orchestra prove to be ideal shipmates in this Azul recording that I love dearly. To have it paired with Anna Clyne's gorgeous music makes the recording even more special and closer to my heart." The project reflects the "Perfectly Free" spirit of the Stift Festival-fearless, generous, and adventurous-capturing not only two landmark contemporary concertos but also the shared inspiration of the musicians who brought them to life.

Mozart Piano Concertos, Vol. 3. The concept behind our present undertaking, the Mozart Piano Concertos CD trilogy, is to present a range of concertos from Mozart's various compositional and performing periods, styles, techniques and instrumentations. Our endeavour is also linked with an encore-like single work on each CD, namely a Rondo. The additional connecting link between these six piano concertos is the Cadenzas & Lead-ins which Lazic has composed himself. Here he was inspired by the common practice of the composer's day.

In The Hidden Legacy, Italian pianist Alessandro Deljavan explores the restless imagination and expressive daring of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), a composer who bridged the worlds of Baroque complexity and Classical clarity. The program traverses the vast emotional and stylistic landscape of C. P. E. Bach's keyboard works-from the introspective Fantasias and fiery Rondos to the refined Sonatas-revealing the composer's pioneering embrace of Empfindsamkeit, the "sensitive style" that sought to mirror human emotion in all it's volatility. Deljavan's interpretations illuminate the dramatic contrasts and psychological depth of this music, turning each piece into a vivid, unpredictable narrative that feels as alive today as it was two centuries ago. Deljavan's artistry combines intellectual precision with fearless emotional spontaneity. His phrasing, pacing, and use of silence elevate Bach's mercurial spirit into something immediate and human. The recording presents not just a historical tribute but a living dialogue between composer and performer-a meditation on creativity, freedom, and feeling. In this album, Deljavan continues his lifelong mission to "touch the heart," capturing the tension, tenderness, and transcendence that make C. P. E. Bach's legacy both hidden and essential.

Beethoven's three Sonatas Op. 10, written between 1796 and 1798, mark a decisive step from the Classical clarity of Haydn and Mozart toward a bolder, more individual language. Each sonata displays a distinct character: the C minor No. 1 combines tragic urgency with structural concentration; the F major No. 2 reveals Beethoven's emerging humor and rhythmic invention; and the expansive D major No. 3 unfolds an unprecedented emotional and architectural scale, crowned by the visionary Largo e mesto. The unifying rhythmic motif of "short-long" pulses through the set, foreshadowing the composer's later dramas. Performed on an 1820 Conrad Graf fortepiano, Roberto Prosseda's interpretation restores the music's raw contrasts, speaking timbres, and anti-rhetorical gestures that modern pianos often smooth away. In his personal note, Prosseda explains how returning to these works on a historical instrument transformed his understanding of Beethoven's expression. The fortepiano's transparency, differentiated registers, and responsive mechanism invite a freer phrasing and more rhetorical, speech-like delivery. He aims not for novelty but sincerity-seeking to rediscover familiar music through it's original sound world. Prosseda is one of Italy's leading pianists with a distinguished career, celebrated for his complete Mendelssohn and Mozart recordings and for reviving the pedal piano. This Beethoven Op. 10 album follows his acclaimed Op. 2 set for Challenge Classics, continuing his exploration of early Beethoven on period instruments.

The album Bohemian Legacy by Trio 258 is a heartfelt tribute to three generations of Czech composers - Bedrich Smetana, Antonin Dvorak, and Josef Suk - whose music embodies the soul of Bohemian culture. The program begins with Smetana's Piano Trio in G minor, a deeply personal and tragic work written in the wake of his daughter's death, where raw grief intertwines with Bohemian folk melodies and a sense of resilience. Dvorak's Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor follows, showcasing his synthesis of Bohemian lyricism and Germanic symphonic structure, combining folk-inspired dance rhythms with Brahmsian complexity. The album concludes with Suk's Elegy in D-flat Major, dedicated to poet Julius Zeyer and inspired by his poem Vysehrad, a reflective and nostalgic ode to Prague's cultural and spiritual heritage. Together, these works form a tapestry of national identity, friendship, and artistic lineage - an exploration of emotion, beauty, and belonging through music. In their liner notes, Trio 258 (Lestari Scholtes, Eduardo Paredes Crespo, and Leonard Besseling) emphasize the importance of language, nature, and folk tradition in shaping Czech music. They describe their interpretive process as an "immensely valuable journey," seeking to find their own voice while honoring the composers' intentions. Through this album, the trio not only presents technically accomplished performances but also reflects on the Bohemian spirit - one that fuses melancholy and vitality, individuality and tradition. Their recording is both a musical homage and a personal exploration of how the language of music can bridge generations, resonating with the timeless ideals of freedom, emotion, and national identity

Tae-Hyung Kim's Echoes in the Mists is a poetic journey through a century of piano music, tracing a line from early Romanticism to early modernism. The album opens with Franz Liszt's masterful transcriptions of Schubert's Lieder-works that preserve the songs' lyrical intimacy while expanding their expressive possibilities on the piano. These include Fruhlingsglaube, Standchen von Shakespeare, and excerpts from Die schone Mullerin, where Liszt illuminates Schubert's emotional worlds with subtle pianistic colour and occasional virtuosic flourish. At the heart of the programme lies Robert Schumann's Waldszenen, a deeply introspective cycle in which nine miniature scenes form an imaginative, poetic walk through an inner forest-alternating between joy, mystery, tenderness, and melancholy. Through this selection, Kim highlights the richly interconnected sound worlds of Schubert, Schumann, and Liszt, revealing both continuity and evolution within the Romantic tradition. The album's second half turns toward a different aesthetic with Leos Janacek's V mlhach (In the Mists), written in 1912, a work shaped by personal grief and the composer's late-style search for distilled expression. It's four movements form a single, mist-shrouded psychological landscape, where fragmentary motives, speech-like rhythms, and shifting tonal colours create a fragile, introspective atmosphere. While faint traces of Debussy's influence may be heard-particularly in the luminous openings and closings-the music remains unmistakably Janacek's in it's tension, fatalism, and emotional immediacy. By juxtaposing these radically different composers, Kim creates an album that reflects the transformation of piano writing from Romantic lyricism to early modern expression, inviting listeners to hear how echoes of the past resonate through changing musical languages.

Black Rainbow is a deeply personal musical journey in which violinist and vocalist Julija Hartig explores questions of belonging, identity, and heritage. The album connects her multicultural roots-Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and Austrian-to her Yugoslavian upbringing, weaving a narrative about migration and ancestral memory. The title work, co-created with Akim Moiseenkov, fuses violin, voice, and live electronics to tell the story of three generations of female migration through sound, using folk elements, recorded voices of her ancestors, and electronic textures. This composition serves as both a meditation on the flow of culture and a sonic bridge between past and present. Through the music of Leos Janacek, Fazil Say, and George Enescu, Hartig continues this exploration of roots and renewal. Janacek's folkloric sonata evokes her sense of "home," while Say's modern improvisational language resonates with her Balkan background. Enescu's Romanian-inspired sonata becomes a revelation of shared ancestry and emotional kinship. Together with pianist Reineke Broekhans, her long-time musical partner and soulmate, Hartig turns Black Rainbow into more than an album-it is a reflection on the "Ancestral Code," showing that wherever we go, the sound of our heritage remains within us

The third collaboration between mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen and Jan Philip Schulze (piano/synthesizer), In Heaven follows their earlier themed albums Dirty Minds and Hello Darkness, albums which were highly rated and won, for instance, an Edison Award and a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. While the first two albums explored earthly themes of eroticism and mortality, this programme turns upward toward the heavens. The concept imagines a cosmic odyssey, blending art song, contemporary music, pop, and psychedelic classics into a voyage through utopian visions, distant planets, and the eternal human fascination with space. Interspersed with NASA sound recordings, the album situates the listener between heaven and earth, fantasy and reality, intoxication and transcendence. The repertoire is strikingly eclectic: David Bowie's Life on Mars opens with real Martian storm sounds, while George Crumb, Brahms, Schubert, and Wolf provide lyrical reflections on stars, dreams, and transcendence. The programme flows seamlessly into Augusta Holmès's exuberant drinking song Le vin, Rebecca Clarke's opium-tinged Lethe, and Grace Slick's psychedelic anthem White Rabbit. French and German masters like Saint-Saëns, Mahler, and Messiaen appear alongside Stockhausen's Tierkreis, Monty Python's satirical Galaxy Song, and Pink Martini's Una notte a Napoli. The album closes with Robert Schumann's radiant Abendlied, underscoring the dialogue between the infinite cosmos and human longing. Together, Vermeulen and Schulze create a soundscape that is at once virtuosic, witty, and deeply imaginative. Supported by percussion and bass in selected tracks, their performances draw on colour, theatricality, and stylistic versatility to transform familiar works into cosmic meditations. In Heaven ultimately reflects on humanity's dreams of escape, intoxication, and utopia while acknowledging the grounding reality of earthbound existence. The result is a kaleidoscopic journey-playful yet profound, rooted in classical artistry yet open to pop culture-that challenges boundaries and offers listeners a musical mission into space.

Nino Gvetadze: Some music stays with you for a lifetime not just in your memory, but in your hands, your ears, your way of feeling the world. For me, that music began in Tbilisi, Georgia, where I was born and raised, and where these sounds first took root. Recording this album felt less like performing and more like remembering. The music flowed naturally, as if something long held inside was finally f inding it's voice. It felt like writing a diary in sound one filled with affection, gratitude and quiet moments of awe. Melodies are warm, wit, poetic and melancholic.

After falling in love with the quartets of Britten and Bartók, we developed a long-standing desire to record these masterpieces. For our debut CD Longing we chose their first quartets, as well as Webern's first string quartet work Langsamer Satz. All three remarkable works resonate with a profound and unmistakable sense of longing. We felt a sense of kinship with these composers as they, like us, were still discovering their distinct style and identity when creating these works. In Langsamer Satz, Webern beautifully showcases the height of longing for love in the romantic 19th century. Bartók continues this romantic idiom and goes on to develop the new sounds of the early 20th century, a period from which we draw so much of our own passions. Finally, Britten continues to explore the sound and identity of the 20th century in his own distinctive colour palette. These works not only keep us on the edge of our seats, but also express a beautiful longing, one which we recognize in ourselves, and one we want to share with our listeners.

The unearthing of Telemann's Fantaisies pour la Basse de Viole in 2015 has been the most important discovery for the repertoire of viola da gamba in recent times. The compositions are a compendium of how Italian and French influences permeated the purely German language to create a specific style. Using the genre Fantasia, Telemann shows us a portrait full of audacity, freshness and compositional freedom hitherto unknown. Sara Ruiz plays on an anonymous viola da gamba dated around 1700. She chooses to emphasize the rotundness and the beauty of the tone, while her technical skills allow her to create a real drama. She does not hesitate to make use of a nice legato where a pleasant melody is encountered: she makes her instrument sing almost like a cello, i.e. a voice. With her, each Fantasia tells a story, every time a particular and thrilling one.

There are moments in music when time seems to pause, and with Arcangelo Corelli's music, I have experienced that enchanted stillness-where each note is not just heard but felt deeply. His music, elegant and radiant, is the gentle whisper of a bygone era, yet it breathes timeless warmth and light. Corelli's art is a delicate conversation between violin and continuo, a living breath of harmony and counterpoint that dances with noble grace. Each phrase unfolds like a tender story, where voices seek, answer, and embrace one another-like cherished friends sharing secrets across the ages. It was through my mentor, Ryo Terakado, and his luminous recording of the Violin Sonatas, Op. 5 that I first stepped into this radiant world. Since then, Corelli's melodies have been a constant companion-like a soft glow in the twilight, a source of inspiration and solace. Corelli's influence extends far beyond my own story. His style shaped the musical language of generations-admired openly by Francois Couperin, absorbed deeply into the work of Jean-Marie Leclair, and echoed, even centuries later, by virtuosi such as Pablo Sarasate and Niccolo Paganini. His music is both spiritual and earthly-a beacon of simplicity and profound beauty. I am deeply grateful to Ryo Terakado for guiding me to this wellspring of grace, to Kaori Uemura and Francois Guerrier for their artistry, and to our magical producer Guido Tichelman and the Byucksan Corporation for nurturing this project. - Eun-Shik Kim

When was the last time you were really furious? With baroque orchestra La Sfera Armoniosa led by Mike Fentross, soprano Channa Malkin explores the raw power of anger through the intense and heart-wrenching music of Antonio Vivaldi. From hidden operatic gems to the fierce In furore iustissimae irae, this album channels rage into beauty. Inspired by Channa's journey as a woman and mother, it reveals how moving through intense emotion can open the door to compassion, clarity, and catharsis.

Darkness explores the symbolic depth of the bass and baritone voice as a vessel for humanity's most profound questions. Across works by Schumann, Wolf, Strauss, Martin and Brahms, the album traces a wide emotional and spiritual landscape shaped by themes of death, transience, loneliness, melancholy and, ultimately, transcendence. The programme opens with Schumann's Requiem, added as a tribute to Nikolaus Lenau and placed at the beginning as a motto: a union of heaviness, longing and gentle, affirmative melancholy. From there, the journey unfolds through composers often writing at pivotal or final stages of their lives. Wolf's Michelangelo Songs, composed shortly before his mental collapse, meditate on love, devotion and artistic melancholy; Strauss's dark-hued songs reflect retreat, solitude and a wistful dissolution into nature; and Frank Martin's Six Monologues from Jedermann plunge into the raw confrontation with death, charting a moral and spiritual transformation from terror to humility and faith. Together, these works reveal darkness not as mere despair, but as a space in which existential truth is sought.  Yet this album is not confined to shadow alone. In both Wolf and Brahms, the selected works bear witness to late creative phases in which despair is counterbalanced by reconciliation. Brahms's Vier ernste Gesange, written in anticipation of loss and drawing on biblical texts, move from stark reflections on mortality toward a final affirmation of love as the greatest human force, closing the circle begun with Schumann's Requiem. Throughout the programme, sorrow is repeatedly transformed into acceptance, and fear into insight, illuminated by what the liner notes describe as a "gentle compositional light." Darkness thus becomes a deeply human meditation: an artistic passage through emotional abysses toward consolation, spiritual clarity and an enduring sense of love that transcends life and death.

This album presents two exceptional chamber works by French composer George Onslow (1784-1853): the String Quintets Op. 72 in G minor and Op. 61 in F minor. Though celebrated in his time and often called the "French Beethoven," Onslow's music fell into obscurity until recent decades. These quintets, from the height of his career, reveal his gift for melodic invention, structural clarity, and expressive depth. The Op. 61 Quintet appears here in it's world premiere recording, following Ensemble Tamuz's discovery of the original manuscript in a private collection linked to the 19th-century cellist Adrien-Francois Servais. Ensemble Tamuz performs on period instruments and brings a historically informed yet vividly expressive approach to Onslow's music. With insight drawn from 19th-century performance practices, they illuminate the subtle freedoms ornamentation, rubato, melodic nuance that bring Romantic chamber music to life. This recording offers a fresh and compelling encounter with two masterful yet underappreciated works of the Romantic repertoire.

For a long time, the fact that three of J.S. Bach's harpsichord concertos are arrangements of earlier violin concertos led scholars to suspect that the remaining concertos were also adaptations of lost works for strings or winds, prompting several musicologists to attempt reconstructions. However, recent research has shown that they are more likely arrangements of earlier keyboard works. But what would Bach have done if he had to perform one of these pieces again and wished to showcase a different solo instrument? Ensemble Odyssee explores this question with three brand-new arrangements, presented alongside Bach's own arrangement of his Fourth Brandenburg Concerto, each piece showcasing the virtuosity of the ensemble's four core members.

La Blancheur des Cygnes is a poetic and reflective musical project that celebrates feminine energy, beauty, and strength through the timeless art of the French chanson. Historian Els Kloek's liner notes frame the album as a continuation of the conversation started by Simone de Beauvoir - exploring how women have evolved from "the other" to agents of their own expression. Through Haesen's evocative voice and the refined strings of the Café des Chansons quartet, the album traverses nearly a century of song - from Charles Trenet's joyful optimism to modern interpretations by artists like Zaho de Sagazan and Solann - weaving themes of love, self-acceptance, vulnerability, and empowerment. At the heart of this collection lies a reclamation of beauty as a feminine right: no longer dictated by the male gaze but redefined as a source of power and authenticity. The title, La Blancheur des Cygnes ("The Whiteness of Swans"), alludes both to Baudelaire's poem La Beauté and to Andersen's tale of The Ugly Duckling, reflecting transformation, grace, and the freedom to be seen. Through these fourteen chansons, Charlotte Haesen and the ensemble offer a moving counterpoint to the enduring dominance of masculine energy - proposing empathy, love, and artistic sensitivity as the true instruments of balance in our modern world.